Johnson: "We've known for a long time this was the way things were going" seems an astonishing admission.
Particularly after this!
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall 33m Boris Johnson remarks to the Commons 8th July: “I am sure they will be aware that there is no military path to victory for the Taliban...I do not believe that the Taliban are guaranteed the kind of victory that we sometimes read about.”
I speculated at the time of the Olympics that the success of Team GB with a disproportionate number of Scots proudly wearing the badge and waving the Union Jack just might have some effect. We are about to get a repeat for the para-Olympics.
We shall see. The list of obvious gains from the Union (vaccines, furlough, economic growth) is pretty strong at the moment but there is a lot of emotion in play.
On the Olympic front I don't see why it would have a lasting affect this time thta it did not last time, given sentiment remains pretty much as it was.
I'm not at all convinced it will make any difference at all. All the identity-driven voters - those liable to be swayed by such symbolic matters as who appears under what flag at a sporting event - will think as well or as badly of Britain after the Olympics as they did before.
The survival of the Union will be determined by the section of the Scottish population that has no emotional attachment to the British state whatsoever but isn't desperate to be rid of it either, and they'll make their decision based on the perceived cost/benefit balance of the arrangement to themselves and their communities. Basically it's all about the money.
One of the more astute observations on this topic on PB. As I keep telling FUDHY and other bampots, Unionists can never win by solely appealing to their core vote. And nor can we sovereigntists. It is the huge number of ‘neutrals’, probably the majority, who will decide this. Thus far the pro-independence parties are doing a better job of appealing to this group of ordinary Scots than Johnson’s team.
Where I disagree with you is that Unionists can win by playing ‘transactional politics’.
If that is the case why are No on 52% in the latest poll?
Why do you care about Scottish opinion polls? The tanks and gunboats are keeping Scotland in the Union irrespective of what the Scots think.
We respect the once in a generation 2014 vote against independence and clearly most Scots agree
No they don’t. They just voted in 72 pro-independence legislators dedicated to a fresh independence referendum. The Unionists only managed 57 legislators. Real votes on real ballot papers count more than opinion polls.
Maybe PB should have a section purely for you both to keep repetitive posting
On my own account, and that of those with whom I associate, whether or not in pubs, can I assure fellow pb-ers that Mr HUFYD, district councillor though he may be, does NOT speak for everyone in Essex.
Does Priti Patel speak for the rest?
No; thought she and HYUFD were on the same page.
Ambassador Laurie Bristow would appear to be an Essex man. Colchester.
There you go then! Real Essex, not fringe London.
I used to date a Chelmsford lass. It’s true: they do know how to have fun.
"Scenes from #Kabul Airport, #Afghanistan showing people boarding what appears to a C17 (please correct me if wrong) and what appears to be gunfire in the air in the distance."
And so sad. Imagine the terror in that airport right now. A lot of people will know that if they can't get out of the country ASAFP then the Taliban will find them, torture them, and kill them
It did not have to be like this, even if Biden WAS determined to do his stupid withdrawal
Trump's withdrawal.
This is on both of them. Trump AND Biden. But Biden will get more blame because he ordered this withdrawal in this insane manner (against, it seems, the advice of many of his military experts)
BIden's judgement on this has been poor certainly, but Trump wanted them out even sooner and faster.
I would say it's primarily on Trump, but with Biden also sharing a smaller proportion of the responsibility.
More importantly, Biden was holding the parcel when the music stopped.
It's how the Gods punish those who seek power.
Yes, that's a profound truth of politics. Even if some disaster isn't all your fault, if it happens on your watch, tough shit, you get the blame
The ERM debacle was the culmination of bipartisan policy to peg the £ to the DM as a run up to euro membership. John Major wasn't entirely to blame, but his government got ALL the blame as it happened when they were in office
The voters never forgave them and gave them an enormous kicking at the next available electoral opportunity
Ditto, and much less importantly, the Millenium Dome. Crap Tory idea which came to symbolise New Labour vacuity.
The outer structure of The Dome was a very good idea - as evinced by the fact that's it's a world-class concert venue to this day. Those stupid 'zones' that Peter Mandelson put inside it were the crap bit.
The vacuous dross that was actually put there was entirely down to the New Labour Government
Who gives a shite about the contents when there is some nice engineering to see? (I was really hacked when Oxford Uni demolished the old LNWR railway station there - made up of modules left over from the 1851 building. But that is another story, and it got preserved elsewhere anyway.)
When they redid the station, they found that a couple of pieces of iron bracing some rotting timer were actually original broad gauge track.... I'd wondered as an 8 year old... they matched the description in Rolt perfectly and were quite unusual.
Funded by Wafic Saïd - best landmines at very reasonable prices......
Ah, I know exactly the construction you mean. I frankly preferred the Rewley Road coalyard (on the site of the old abbey by the canal). Had friends there living in the railway/canal corridor from far north to far south and so I got to explore it and the pubs (from, I seem to recall, the Trout to the General Elliott in the south). Went back for a meal a couple of years back. It's all jammed solid with what I'm not allowed any more to call yuppie housing, tho' the LNWR swingbridge has been preserved.
I speculated at the time of the Olympics that the success of Team GB with a disproportionate number of Scots proudly wearing the badge and waving the Union Jack just might have some effect. We are about to get a repeat for the para-Olympics.
We shall see. The list of obvious gains from the Union (vaccines, furlough, economic growth) is pretty strong at the moment but there is a lot of emotion in play.
On the Olympic front I don't see why it would have a lasting affect this time thta it did not last time, given sentiment remains pretty much as it was.
I'm not at all convinced it will make any difference at all. All the identity-driven voters - those liable to be swayed by such symbolic matters as who appears under what flag at a sporting event - will think as well or as badly of Britain after the Olympics as they did before.
The survival of the Union will be determined by the section of the Scottish population that has no emotional attachment to the British state whatsoever but isn't desperate to be rid of it either, and they'll make their decision based on the perceived cost/benefit balance of the arrangement to themselves and their communities. Basically it's all about the money.
One of the more astute observations on this topic on PB. As I keep telling FUDHY and other bampots, Unionists can never win by solely appealing to their core vote. And nor can we sovereigntists. It is the huge number of ‘neutrals’, probably the majority, who will decide this. Thus far the pro-independence parties are doing a better job of appealing to this group of ordinary Scots than Johnson’s team.
Where I disagree with you is that Unionists can win by playing ‘transactional politics’.
If that is the case why are No on 52% in the latest poll?
Why do you care about Scottish opinion polls? The tanks and gunboats are keeping Scotland in the Union irrespective of what the Scots think.
We respect the once in a generation 2014 vote against independence and clearly most Scots agree
No they don’t. They just voted in 72 pro-independence legislators dedicated to a fresh independence referendum. The Unionists only managed 57 legislators. Real votes on real ballot papers count more than opinion polls.
Maybe PB should have a section purely for you both to keep repetitive posting
It would be a relief to a lot of us
The PB section on Scottish independence is below the line. All other matters go above the line
What the hell is going on in Afghanistan? Did Biden think he’s just abandon the place to the Taliban, as opposed to being in the slightest bit organised about withdrawing troops?
The American troops left on the qt, so this was Al ays inevitable.
However, Trump announced the withdrawal last year so Biden was an is in a complete no win situation.
Keep the troops there and the GOP would criticise everyday hand injury, leave and suffer the pain and embarrassment of leaving.
By doing it now through it will be forgotten before the next election comes along.
Of course it was always going to be a tricky situation to manage, but pretty much any way would have been better than having to land Chinooks on the roof of your own embassy to get the diplomats out.
Those photos will define Biden’s presidency, it’s reminiscent of the fall of Saigon five decades ago, as the American troops fled Vietnam in defeat.
The Saigon comparison is being overcooked imo. Ok, so there's a copter. What I don't see is it taking off the roof of the embassy amidst scenes of utter chaos with people hanging on for grim death to the undercarriage with their legs dangling in the air. And whether you agree or disagree with the withdrawal, the notion that this final leg of it, following his predecessor's plan and with public support, will define and condemn Joe Biden's presidency is absurd. Is it co-incidence that those pronouncing that it will are all people who were rather disappointed he beat Trump in the election? I think not.
You're completely wrong. The photos of the two "chinooky" choppers on both US embassies - Saigon, Kabul - are now going absolutely viral
Yep, we have photos of copters. It's too tempting for many. Hence instant received wisdom is created. "It's Saigon all over again!". Will last a few days.
And, sure, he's upsetting some "muscular" liberal types on his side of the political fence who are seeking either to rewrite history or start from a different place or imagine into being a different American public, but they'll soon be writing about other things.
The bottom line is this decision is driven by US domestic political calculation and it's not obviously flawed. We'll see how it pans out but for now I'll take Biden's judgment on that over yours, H's, Sandpit's et al any day of the week. I think one has to.
When the US Secretary of State is being asked if scenes from Kabul remind him of Saigon, then the comparison is sticking.
Vietnam still very much resonates in the USA, even nearly five decades later, as one of America’s biggest screw-ups. The pictures of the Chinooks in Kabul today are identical to those from the fall of Saigon in 1975, when the world’s superpower was forced to retreat. Those pictures are already on every front page and TV screen, and can’t be unseen.
I'm not saying this isn't a big and bad story for Joe Biden. It's certainly the 1st and (right now) the 2nd too. What I'm taking issue with is the ludicrous assertions of his presidency being defined and doomed by it. And I'm sorry but I can't help noticing that most of this is coming from people who have been strikingly jaundiced against Biden for a long time.
LBJ and Nixon and Ford were defined by Vietnam ( LBJ by civil rights and the Great Society and Nixon by Watergate too), Carter by the Iran hostage crisis, Reagan by setting the stage to end the Cold War, Bush 41 by the Gulf War and breaking his tax pledge, Bill Clinton by Monica, Dubya by 9/11 and his response to it, Obama by being the first black president and Obamacare, Trump by his failure on Covid.
Biden will almost certainly be defined by this unless he does something spectacular in the rest of his term
This is the final leg of the withdrawal the American public want. The Taliban back in power in Afghanistan is priced in. It's only the 7th month of his presidency. He is implementing the plan of his predecessor. Based on all logic - a Western specialty per Leon - this is unlikely to define his term in office and even less likely to doom him at the polls should he seek a 2nd term.
The American public want mutually exclusive things - they might want American troops out of Afghanistan, but sure as hell don’t want the place to become a failed state run by terrorists who hate us.
It’s the job of the politicians to thread the needle, to work through what’s possible and sell it to the public. It’s clear that both the incumbent president and his predecessor have screwed this one up massively.
Isn't it too early to know what the American public think about this?
I think I’ll stick with “Sure as hell don’t want the place to become a failed state run by terrorists who hate us”.
And Biden sure as hell didn't want to keep US troops in Afghanistan and leave himself open to Trumpian attacks, resonating with the deeply parochial American electorate, of failing to bring their boys home as per the fabulous plan bequeathed to him by the man himself.
Trumpites will mock him now anyway as a loser.
Indeed Trump already has done so 'former President Trump slammed President Biden on Saturday for not “following the plan” the former administration left for him regarding withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“He ran out of Afghanistan instead of following the plan our Administration left for him—a plan that protected our people and our property, and ensured the Taliban would never dream of taking our Embassy or providing a base for new attacks against America. The withdrawal would be guided by facts on the ground,” Trump said in a statement.
“After I took out ISIS, I established a credible deterrent. That deterrent is now gone. The Taliban no longer has fear or respect for America, or America’s power,” he added
Yes, Trump will be bullshitting away. It's what he does. But I don't see this as having much force. For years he's been banging on about America First. This is America First in the way that most people there probably understand it. Troops out of faraway countries that they neither understand nor care about.
Indeed. Ending foreign deployments has been a core Trumpist policy, at least into far that there is any consistent policy in Trumpworld. He bugged out of Syria too, abandoning stuff to the Islamists.
On my own account, and that of those with whom I associate, whether or not in pubs, can I assure fellow pb-ers that Mr HUFYD, district councillor though he may be, does NOT speak for everyone in Essex.
Does Priti Patel speak for the rest?
No; thought she and HYUFD were on the same page.
Ambassador Laurie Bristow would appear to be an Essex man. Colchester.
What the hell is going on in Afghanistan? Did Biden think he’s just abandon the place to the Taliban, as opposed to being in the slightest bit organised about withdrawing troops?
The American troops left on the qt, so this was Al ays inevitable.
However, Trump announced the withdrawal last year so Biden was an is in a complete no win situation.
Keep the troops there and the GOP would criticise everyday hand injury, leave and suffer the pain and embarrassment of leaving.
By doing it now through it will be forgotten before the next election comes along.
Of course it was always going to be a tricky situation to manage, but pretty much any way would have been better than having to land Chinooks on the roof of your own embassy to get the diplomats out.
Those photos will define Biden’s presidency, it’s reminiscent of the fall of Saigon five decades ago, as the American troops fled Vietnam in defeat.
The Saigon comparison is being overcooked imo. Ok, so there's a copter. What I don't see is it taking off the roof of the embassy amidst scenes of utter chaos with people hanging on for grim death to the undercarriage with their legs dangling in the air. And whether you agree or disagree with the withdrawal, the notion that this final leg of it, following his predecessor's plan and with public support, will define and condemn Joe Biden's presidency is absurd. Is it co-incidence that those pronouncing that it will are all people who were rather disappointed he beat Trump in the election? I think not.
You're completely wrong. The photos of the two "chinooky" choppers on both US embassies - Saigon, Kabul - are now going absolutely viral
Yep, we have photos of copters. It's too tempting for many. Hence instant received wisdom is created. "It's Saigon all over again!". Will last a few days.
And, sure, he's upsetting some "muscular" liberal types on his side of the political fence who are seeking either to rewrite history or start from a different place or imagine into being a different American public, but they'll soon be writing about other things.
The bottom line is this decision is driven by US domestic political calculation and it's not obviously flawed. We'll see how it pans out but for now I'll take Biden's judgment on that over yours, H's, Sandpit's et al any day of the week. I think one has to.
When the US Secretary of State is being asked if scenes from Kabul remind him of Saigon, then the comparison is sticking.
Vietnam still very much resonates in the USA, even nearly five decades later, as one of America’s biggest screw-ups. The pictures of the Chinooks in Kabul today are identical to those from the fall of Saigon in 1975, when the world’s superpower was forced to retreat. Those pictures are already on every front page and TV screen, and can’t be unseen.
I'm not saying this isn't a big and bad story for Joe Biden. It's certainly the 1st and (right now) the 2nd too. What I'm taking issue with is the ludicrous assertions of his presidency being defined and doomed by it. And I'm sorry but I can't help noticing that most of this is coming from people who have been strikingly jaundiced against Biden for a long time.
LBJ and Nixon and Ford were defined by Vietnam ( LBJ by civil rights and the Great Society and Nixon by Watergate too), Carter by the Iran hostage crisis, Reagan by setting the stage to end the Cold War, Bush 41 by the Gulf War and breaking his tax pledge, Bill Clinton by Monica, Dubya by 9/11 and his response to it, Obama by being the first black president and Obamacare, Trump by his failure on Covid.
Biden will almost certainly be defined by this unless he does something spectacular in the rest of his term
This is the final leg of the withdrawal the American public want. The Taliban back in power in Afghanistan is priced in. It's only the 7th month of his presidency. He is implementing the plan of his predecessor. Based on all logic - a Western specialty per Leon - this is unlikely to define his term in office and even less likely to doom him at the polls should he seek a 2nd term.
The American public want mutually exclusive things - they might want American troops out of Afghanistan, but sure as hell don’t want the place to become a failed state run by terrorists who hate us.
It’s the job of the politicians to thread the needle, to work through what’s possible and sell it to the public. It’s clear that both the incumbent president and his predecessor have screwed this one up massively.
Isn't it too early to know what the American public think about this?
I think reading the minds of the US public is a mere bagatelle for the experts of PB.
It doesn't take a world class phrenologist to deduce that these terrible images and stories will not play well for Joe Biden, even if he is enjoying his holiday
The photos of cutting your losses are never going to look good, but the idea this defines Biden's presidency is crazy. Afghanistan will be looked back on as a mistaken, failed war. But it will not be Biden's mistaken, failed war. The fact he has done this so early in his presidency us exactly why the comparisons to LBJ are off the mark.
It really depends how bad it gets from here
If, somehow, the evacuation is done, no hostages are taken, and the Taliban are unusually merciful, and no terror is exported from Kabul, then yes, Biden could easily shrug it off
But those are enormous IFs. And multiple.
The evacuation might be chaotic and bloody (it doesn't look good so far), the Taliban might easily take hostages, we could have four years of videos of Taliban beheadings, stonings, amputations, women in shrouds, and, worst of all for Biden, if there is one big terror attack on America which is traced back to Taliban ruled Afghanistan, he is toast
This is already the most embarrassing foreign policy episode for America in decades; the auguries for Biden are bad
In foreign policy terms, today is certainly the worst event that has happened in my lifetime. We are fleeing from a supposedly allied country in complete panic as it is overrun by violent Islamic fundamentalists; embassies being evacuated, thousands desperately fleeing, leaving many others to certain torture, rape, slavery and death. Our politicians look like they have no clue about what they are doing and were as surprised as everyone else with what happened. More than anything else, they look like they don't really give a damn; as if the idea of projecting power in the world is an awkward legacy of a bygone era. They will hand it all over to Russia and China, who will carry on with their modern version of pre colonial mercantilism, in doing so abandoning the rule based international order that took a century to build up.
Purely and simply it is a strategic retreat. But it may well be that it this is what western populations want, and if it is, it won't necessarily harm governments politically in the way we expect it to.
All true
The only bit I might argue with is "strategic retreat" - it feels more like hysterical flight
America, in particular, seems to have lost all self confidence in about ten short years. Maybe it started with 9/11, but it has accelerated greatly since 2010. And without America's leadership the West is in grave trouble
Also, it does not have to be like this. The West still has so much going for it - not least, political and intellectual freedom (even if we are determined to destroy this with Wokeness)
We really need some fucking great leaders to shake us out of this nonsensical spiral of doom. We need rid of Woke, as well, as the Russians and Chinese are clearly using it, via social media, to undermine our self esteem, in quite crucial ways
This is indeed shaping up as a complex and difficult century for the West to navigate but so long as we have what others don't have - the ability to think logically - we can, I think, be optimistic.
There is no logic in self hatred and weak capitulation, which is all we are getting from most western leaders at the moment
Maybe the reality of every western government that their electorates have had enough of foreign military interventions
For now, if we get 9/11 2 they will change their mind
It is up to the security and intelligence forces of our countries to defend us from terrorist attack, not go and invade foreign countries
"Scenes from #Kabul Airport, #Afghanistan showing people boarding what appears to a C17 (please correct me if wrong) and what appears to be gunfire in the air in the distance."
And so sad. Imagine the terror in that airport right now. A lot of people will know that if they can't get out of the country ASAFP then the Taliban will find them, torture them, and kill them
It did not have to be like this, even if Biden WAS determined to do his stupid withdrawal
Trump's withdrawal.
This is on both of them. Trump AND Biden. But Biden will get more blame because he ordered this withdrawal in this insane manner (against, it seems, the advice of many of his military experts)
BIden's judgement on this has been poor certainly, but Trump wanted them out even sooner and faster.
I would say it's primarily on Trump, but with Biden also sharing a smaller proportion of the responsibility.
More importantly, Biden was holding the parcel when the music stopped.
It's how the Gods punish those who seek power.
Biden has massively fucked up here. There might be fault elsewhere, but this is simply the worst political disaster ever. Worse than George III.
And Boris Johnson. Doing the exact same thing as Biden. You cannot criticise Biden and not Johnson without being a total hypocrite.
Of course you can.
The notion that the UK either would or should remain even after twenty years and a US withdrawal is completely farcical.
Someone as naive as HYUFD might think that we could remain fighting on our own and change the results after two decades with the Americans hasn't - but do you seriously believe that?
The result of the last 20 years is we avoided 9/11 2, Biden has just made Afghanistan a terrorist state again and sent the chances of 9/11 2 rocketing sadly
Terrorism never stopped you silly little man. Perhaps you didn't notice the recent history of Bali, Madrid, Mumbai and London.
No major attack on a western city on anything like the scale of 9/11, including 7/7
There was Madrid in 2004. 195 dead, over 2000 injured. That’s a similar scale.
On planet HYUFD, only attacks on America count, you see.
Well someone has got to leave next, and as this is a betting site, odds as to who that might be seems a more than relevant point for discussion.
Not right now.. Dickson used to post lots of pointless betting odds. Boris is going nowhere.. who his successor is irrelevant right now.
Huh? This is (supposedly) a political betting blog. I’m fascinated by your proposition that some political betting odds are “pointless”. Please show your workings.
According to the markets, there is actually a percentage of the punting public who do think that Johnson is going. That’s the fun! Put your money where your mouth is.
D+
All the ones you used to.post at 6 am whom few if anyone was interested in and you got banned for iirc I seem remember that you flooded the site with crap.
Huh? New one on me.
I’ve been banned for being rude to Mark Senior, for allegedly having a fake email address (untrue: it’s the one I’m still using right now 15 years later, and Robert Smithson recently contacted me on), for posting Scottish sub-samples, for sticking up for my bullied colleague James Kelly, and just generally for being an annoying Jock, but I cannot recall ever being banned for posting odds. On a betting blog that would be truly bizarre.
I speculated at the time of the Olympics that the success of Team GB with a disproportionate number of Scots proudly wearing the badge and waving the Union Jack just might have some effect. We are about to get a repeat for the para-Olympics.
We shall see. The list of obvious gains from the Union (vaccines, furlough, economic growth) is pretty strong at the moment but there is a lot of emotion in play.
On the Olympic front I don't see why it would have a lasting affect this time thta it did not last time, given sentiment remains pretty much as it was.
I'm not at all convinced it will make any difference at all. All the identity-driven voters - those liable to be swayed by such symbolic matters as who appears under what flag at a sporting event - will think as well or as badly of Britain after the Olympics as they did before.
The survival of the Union will be determined by the section of the Scottish population that has no emotional attachment to the British state whatsoever but isn't desperate to be rid of it either, and they'll make their decision based on the perceived cost/benefit balance of the arrangement to themselves and their communities. Basically it's all about the money.
One of the more astute observations on this topic on PB. As I keep telling FUDHY and other bampots, Unionists can never win by solely appealing to their core vote. And nor can we sovereigntists. It is the huge number of ‘neutrals’, probably the majority, who will decide this. Thus far the pro-independence parties are doing a better job of appealing to this group of ordinary Scots than Johnson’s team.
Where I disagree with you is that Unionists can win by playing ‘transactional politics’.
I'm not so sure, simply because it appears to have worked in the past and still appears to be working now. Consider:
1. From the 2011 Census returns, we know that the responses of 62% of the Scottish population to the national identity question indicated that they identified as "Scottish only." As distinct from 27% who answered "Scottish & British" or "British only," the balance being made up by a modest number of English people (2%) and various other bits and pieces
2. From the 2014 referendum, we know that 45% of that part of the Scottish electorate who chose to turn out voted for independence
Therefore, at a guess, something like 25-30% of all Scots who identified solely as Scottish, and who chose to turn out in 2014, must also have voted to uphold the British state. If they felt no attachment to Britain yet voted to keep it anyway, then I struggle to think of any other explanation than that they were afraid of being left worse off - whether those concerns centred on currency-related issues, terms of trade, state pensions, fiscal transfers, taxation and spending policies post-independence, or some combination of these things.
In short, it seems reasonable to assume that these voters were convinced that upholding the Union was to their material advantage. The alternatives: a desire to maintain a common military force (directed against whom - the Vikings?), masochism and stupidity don't seem plausible.
The fact that, seven years on from the independence referendum and a number of elections, controversies and crises later, the needle of public opinion still hasn't moved decisively in one direction or another, suggests that the transactional relationship voters still exist in large numbers and are quite possibly as numerous as before. The challenge which faced Mr Salmond's administration pre-2014, and that which faces Ms Sturgeon's now, is, I would therefore suggest, fundamentally the same: come up with a plausible vision of independence that convinces these voters that they will ideally be no worse off; or, at a stretch, that they won't be hit in the wallet very hard and the effects are liable to be short-lived. If they can do that then, given that the conviction Unionist vote is a relatively small minority (certainly no more than 30%,) they shall inevitably win in the end. Simple.
I wonder if Boris could be in a spot of bother here. Tory MPs can stomach a lot if the PMs a winner, but betraying the sacrifice of our troops maimed or killed in action? That might be a step too far.
The Taliban advance on Kabul is as fast & ferocious as it was when they won power in 1996. Why? The govt forces, though better trained now, are terrified of their fundamentalist ferocity & their rout at executing people who standup against them."
Yes, just like ISIS. Inducing absolute terror is THE method. ISIS managed to defeat forces ten times the size, armies with much better weapons, simply by frightening them into fleeing
The only way to fight back is to be equally evil and brutal, as the Iraqis, Kurds and Syrians eventually discovered, when they started torturing and beheading all their ISIS captives
That's the only way to beat the Taliban, I fear. It needs Afghans as ferocious but from the opposite side. Or the Americans could just bomb them all to bits
Well someone has got to leave next, and as this is a betting site, odds as to who that might be seems a more than relevant point for discussion.
Not right now.. Dickson used to post lots of pointless betting odds. Boris is going nowhere.. who his successor is irrelevant right now.
Huh? This is (supposedly) a political betting blog. I’m fascinated by your proposition that some political betting odds are “pointless”. Please show your workings.
According to the markets, there is actually a percentage of the punting public who do think that Johnson is going. That’s the fun! Put your money where your mouth is.
D+
All the ones you used to.post at 6 am whom few if anyone was interested in and you got banned for iirc I seem remember that you flooded the site with crap.
Huh? New one on me.
I’ve been banned for being rude to Mark Senior, for allegedly having a fake email address (untrue: it’s the one I’m still using right now 15 years later, and Robert Smithson recently contacted me on), for posting Scottish sub-samples, for sticking up for my bullied colleague James Kelly, and just generally for being an annoying Jock, but I cannot recall ever being banned for posting odds. On a betting blog that would be truly bizarre.
You flooded the site with consituency odds every day.. ceaselessy...
If you were not banned for it you should have been.!
JUST IN: Hamid Karzai Int'l Airport in Kabul is still taking constant fire and U.S. forces are attempting to take care of the threats, per journalist on the ground.
More US troops are flooding in to the airport. BUT the Tailban are sweeping into Kabul, in Humvees
"Thousands of #Taliban arrived from Logar & other provinces of #Afghanistan at #Kabul to secure the capital as the #US is trying to evacuate several Afghans trapped in the airport."
The question is what do the US actually have on the ground to respond. If its essentially a reinforced infantry battalion plus some specialists and the rump of what was left of the presence then they have got it wrong. What they needed was more troops & field guns which should be forward deployed with 82nd airborne. My understanding is that the British were coming with counter battery radar but whether thays even there is a unknown.
Taking fire could be anything; mortars, rockets , some geezers pot shotting long range with machine guns or rifles. What it does suggest is the lack of heavy cordon outside the airport grounds which is essential to push the threat out
The Pentagon has just announced more deployments but this seems to be of troops already announced sitting in Kuwait on forward deployment. There is no doubt this evacuation has been sluggish because theyve been caught out. If the UK expected a 3 week operation the US was probably on the same timeline. Only today did the French announce air tranbsport deployments to Kabul, other states are sending air force transports now that commercial flights have ceased which they appear to have not factored in until the moment it happened.
The flat reality is the announced 3000 then 5000 troop deployment isnt fully on the ground and maybe only half on the ground. If it was fully there this would be a different security situation.
In effect the situation has been entirely outsourced to the Taliban to decide how hard this gets.
The lack of a three line whip does not mean the vote isn't substantive.
Wanna bet?
My point was regarding his mentioning of the number of lines the whip has. That's pretty meaningless. As for what the UK alone can do at the moment, the answer is very little.
What exactly will MPs be voting on and what will it mean?
The general position is that we follow what the Americans have decided and have no possible input now into that.
The government will update (a bit late) on what they are doing to ensure all our people, hopefully including those who have worked with and for us, are safe.
Is there anything that will conceivably be changed by any vote on Wednesday?
Well someone has got to leave next, and as this is a betting site, odds as to who that might be seems a more than relevant point for discussion.
Not right now.. Dickson used to post lots of pointless betting odds. Boris is going nowhere.. who his successor is irrelevant right now.
Huh? This is (supposedly) a political betting blog. I’m fascinated by your proposition that some political betting odds are “pointless”. Please show your workings.
According to the markets, there is actually a percentage of the punting public who do think that Johnson is going. That’s the fun! Put your money where your mouth is.
D+
All the ones you used to.post at 6 am whom few if anyone was interested in and you got banned for iirc I seem remember that you flooded the site with crap.
Huh? New one on me.
I’ve been banned for being rude to Mark Senior, for allegedly having a fake email address (untrue: it’s the one I’m still using right now 15 years later, and Robert Smithson recently contacted me on), for posting Scottish sub-samples, for sticking up for my bullied colleague James Kelly, and just generally for being an annoying Jock, but I cannot recall ever being banned for posting odds. On a betting blog that would be truly bizarre.
You flooded the site with consituency odds every day.. ceaselessy...
If you were not banned for it you should have been.!
Just weird. People truly interested in political betting love to keep abreast of odds, especially constituency odds. You really are an odd fellow. If betting odds so repel you go find another obscure blog. One devoted to licking Boris’ botty might appeal?
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
"Scenes from #Kabul Airport, #Afghanistan showing people boarding what appears to a C17 (please correct me if wrong) and what appears to be gunfire in the air in the distance."
And so sad. Imagine the terror in that airport right now. A lot of people will know that if they can't get out of the country ASAFP then the Taliban will find them, torture them, and kill them
It did not have to be like this, even if Biden WAS determined to do his stupid withdrawal
Trump's withdrawal.
This is on both of them. Trump AND Biden. But Biden will get more blame because he ordered this withdrawal in this insane manner (against, it seems, the advice of many of his military experts)
BIden's judgement on this has been poor certainly, but Trump wanted them out even sooner and faster.
I would say it's primarily on Trump, but with Biden also sharing a smaller proportion of the responsibility.
More importantly, Biden was holding the parcel when the music stopped.
It's how the Gods punish those who seek power.
Biden has massively fucked up here. There might be fault elsewhere, but this is simply the worst political disaster ever. Worse than George III.
And Boris Johnson. Doing the exact same thing as Biden. You cannot criticise Biden and not Johnson without being a total hypocrite.
Of course you can.
The notion that the UK either would or should remain even after twenty years and a US withdrawal is completely farcical.
Someone as naive as HYUFD might think that we could remain fighting on our own and change the results after two decades with the Americans hasn't - but do you seriously believe that?
The result of the last 20 years is we avoided 9/11 2, Biden has just made Afghanistan a terrorist state again and sent the chances of 9/11 2 rocketing sadly
Terrorism never stopped you silly little man. Perhaps you didn't notice the recent history of Bali, Madrid, Mumbai and London.
No major attack on a western city on anything like the scale of 9/11, including 7/7
There was Madrid in 2004. 195 dead, over 2000 injured. That’s a similar scale.
I speculated at the time of the Olympics that the success of Team GB with a disproportionate number of Scots proudly wearing the badge and waving the Union Jack just might have some effect. We are about to get a repeat for the para-Olympics.
We shall see. The list of obvious gains from the Union (vaccines, furlough, economic growth) is pretty strong at the moment but there is a lot of emotion in play.
On the Olympic front I don't see why it would have a lasting affect this time thta it did not last time, given sentiment remains pretty much as it was.
I'm not at all convinced it will make any difference at all. All the identity-driven voters - those liable to be swayed by such symbolic matters as who appears under what flag at a sporting event - will think as well or as badly of Britain after the Olympics as they did before.
The survival of the Union will be determined by the section of the Scottish population that has no emotional attachment to the British state whatsoever but isn't desperate to be rid of it either, and they'll make their decision based on the perceived cost/benefit balance of the arrangement to themselves and their communities. Basically it's all about the money.
One of the more astute observations on this topic on PB. As I keep telling FUDHY and other bampots, Unionists can never win by solely appealing to their core vote. And nor can we sovereigntists. It is the huge number of ‘neutrals’, probably the majority, who will decide this. Thus far the pro-independence parties are doing a better job of appealing to this group of ordinary Scots than Johnson’s team.
Where I disagree with you is that Unionists can win by playing ‘transactional politics’.
I'm not so sure, simply because it appears to have worked in the past and still appears to be working now. Consider:
1. From the 2011 Census returns, we know that the responses of 62% of the Scottish population to the national identity question indicated that they identified as "Scottish only." As distinct from 27% who answered "Scottish & British" or "British only," the balance being made up by a modest number of English people (2%) and various other bits and pieces
2. From the 2014 referendum, we know that 45% of that part of the Scottish electorate who chose to turn out voted for independence
Therefore, at a guess, something like 25-30% of all Scots who identified solely as Scottish, and who chose to turn out in 2014, must also have voted to uphold the British state. If they felt no attachment to Britain yet voted to keep it anyway, then I struggle to think of any other explanation than that they were afraid of being left worse off - whether those concerns centred on currency-related issues, terms of trade, state pensions, fiscal transfers, taxation and spending policies post-independence, or some combination of these things.
In short, it seems reasonable to assume that these voters were convinced that upholding the Union was to their material advantage. The alternatives: a desire to maintain a common military force (directed against whom - the Vikings?), masochism and stupidity don't seem plausible.
The fact that, seven years on from the independence referendum and a number of elections, controversies and crises later, the needle of public opinion still hasn't moved decisively in one direction or another, suggests that the transactional relationship voters still exist in large numbers and are quite possibly as numerous as before. The challenge which faced Mr Salmond's administration pre-2014, and that which faces Ms Sturgeon's now, is, I would therefore suggest, fundamentally the same: come up with a plausible vision of independence that convinces these voters that they will ideally be no worse off; or, at a stretch, that they won't be hit in the wallet very hard and the effects are liable to be short-lived. If they can do that then, given that the conviction Unionist vote is a relatively small minority (certainly no more than 30%,) they shall inevitably win in the end. Simple.
Good, comprehensive post. And utterly wrong! But I won’t expand on that. Never intervene when your opponents are making an error 😊
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
"Scenes from #Kabul Airport, #Afghanistan showing people boarding what appears to a C17 (please correct me if wrong) and what appears to be gunfire in the air in the distance."
And so sad. Imagine the terror in that airport right now. A lot of people will know that if they can't get out of the country ASAFP then the Taliban will find them, torture them, and kill them
It did not have to be like this, even if Biden WAS determined to do his stupid withdrawal
Trump's withdrawal.
This is on both of them. Trump AND Biden. But Biden will get more blame because he ordered this withdrawal in this insane manner (against, it seems, the advice of many of his military experts)
BIden's judgement on this has been poor certainly, but Trump wanted them out even sooner and faster.
I would say it's primarily on Trump, but with Biden also sharing a smaller proportion of the responsibility.
More importantly, Biden was holding the parcel when the music stopped.
It's how the Gods punish those who seek power.
Biden has massively fucked up here. There might be fault elsewhere, but this is simply the worst political disaster ever. Worse than George III.
And Boris Johnson. Doing the exact same thing as Biden. You cannot criticise Biden and not Johnson without being a total hypocrite.
Of course you can.
The notion that the UK either would or should remain even after twenty years and a US withdrawal is completely farcical.
Someone as naive as HYUFD might think that we could remain fighting on our own and change the results after two decades with the Americans hasn't - but do you seriously believe that?
The result of the last 20 years is we avoided 9/11 2, Biden has just made Afghanistan a terrorist state again and sent the chances of 9/11 2 rocketing sadly
Terrorism never stopped you silly little man. Perhaps you didn't notice the recent history of Bali, Madrid, Mumbai and London.
No major attack on a western city on anything like the scale of 9/11, including 7/7
There was Madrid in 2004. 195 dead, over 2000 injured. That’s a similar scale.
No it wasn't, there were 2,977 killed on 9/11.
Madrid 2004 was not even 10% of that death toll
Pro rata per population, it was most certainly on the same scale. Only a little less than half the mortality.
Hard to argue with Jon Sopel on this front Arguments can be made about the US policy to pull out – there is a strong feeling that US involvement couldn’t continue ad infinitum.
But the manner of the withdrawal has been hapless, with a mass of miscalculation, warnings ignored, and – critically – a wild over-estimation of the capability of the American-trained Afghan armed forces.
Biden was told the Afghan forces could hold out for at least eighteen months. Bad advice.
Well someone has got to leave next, and as this is a betting site, odds as to who that might be seems a more than relevant point for discussion.
Not right now.. Dickson used to post lots of pointless betting odds. Boris is going nowhere.. who his successor is irrelevant right now.
Huh? This is (supposedly) a political betting blog. I’m fascinated by your proposition that some political betting odds are “pointless”. Please show your workings.
According to the markets, there is actually a percentage of the punting public who do think that Johnson is going. That’s the fun! Put your money where your mouth is.
D+
All the ones you used to.post at 6 am whom few if anyone was interested in and you got banned for iirc I seem remember that you flooded the site with crap.
Huh? New one on me.
I’ve been banned for being rude to Mark Senior, for allegedly having a fake email address (untrue: it’s the one I’m still using right now 15 years later, and Robert Smithson recently contacted me on), for posting Scottish sub-samples, for sticking up for my bullied colleague James Kelly, and just generally for being an annoying Jock, but I cannot recall ever being banned for posting odds. On a betting blog that would be truly bizarre.
Well someone has got to leave next, and as this is a betting site, odds as to who that might be seems a more than relevant point for discussion.
Not right now.. Dickson used to post lots of pointless betting odds. Boris is going nowhere.. who his successor is irrelevant right now.
Huh? This is (supposedly) a political betting blog. I’m fascinated by your proposition that some political betting odds are “pointless”. Please show your workings.
According to the markets, there is actually a percentage of the punting public who do think that Johnson is going. That’s the fun! Put your money where your mouth is.
D+
All the ones you used to.post at 6 am whom few if anyone was interested in and you got banned for iirc I seem remember that you flooded the site with crap.
Huh? New one on me.
I’ve been banned for being rude to Mark Senior, for allegedly having a fake email address (untrue: it’s the one I’m still using right now 15 years later, and Robert Smithson recently contacted me on), for posting Scottish sub-samples, for sticking up for my bullied colleague James Kelly, and just generally for being an annoying Jock, but I cannot recall ever being banned for posting odds. On a betting blog that would be truly bizarre.
You flooded the site with consituency odds every day.. ceaselessy...
If you were not banned for it you should have been.!
Just weird. People truly interested in political betting love to keep abreast of odds, especially constituency odds. You really are an odd fellow. If betting odds so repel you go find another obscure blog. One devoted to licking Boris’ botty might appeal?
The point was that everyone could see them on the betting firms websites.. they didnt need posting here . Most post odds when there is' so called free money 'or one where the odds seem wrong. People do not flood the site with constitiency odds endlessly like you did and thank God they don't.
"The US aid spending watchdog for Afghanistan warned last month that the US military had little or no means of knowing the capability of the Afghan National Defense and Security forces (ANDSF) when required to operate independently of the US forces, despite spending $88.3bn on security-related reconstruction in Afghanistan up to March 2021.
...
The watchdog had, it said, repeatedly warned about “the corrosive effects of corruption” within the force. With its reliance on advanced equipment, and with widespread illiteracy in its ranks, the force could not reliably maintain its strength and combat readiness."
What the hell is going on in Afghanistan? Did Biden think he’s just abandon the place to the Taliban, as opposed to being in the slightest bit organised about withdrawing troops?
The American troops left on the qt, so this was Al ays inevitable.
However, Trump announced the withdrawal last year so Biden was an is in a complete no win situation.
Keep the troops there and the GOP would criticise everyday hand injury, leave and suffer the pain and embarrassment of leaving.
By doing it now through it will be forgotten before the next election comes along.
Of course it was always going to be a tricky situation to manage, but pretty much any way would have been better than having to land Chinooks on the roof of your own embassy to get the diplomats out.
Those photos will define Biden’s presidency, it’s reminiscent of the fall of Saigon five decades ago, as the American troops fled Vietnam in defeat.
The Saigon comparison is being overcooked imo. Ok, so there's a copter. What I don't see is it taking off the roof of the embassy amidst scenes of utter chaos with people hanging on for grim death to the undercarriage with their legs dangling in the air. And whether you agree or disagree with the withdrawal, the notion that this final leg of it, following his predecessor's plan and with public support, will define and condemn Joe Biden's presidency is absurd. Is it co-incidence that those pronouncing that it will are all people who were rather disappointed he beat Trump in the election? I think not.
You're completely wrong. The photos of the two "chinooky" choppers on both US embassies - Saigon, Kabul - are now going absolutely viral
Yep, we have photos of copters. It's too tempting for many. Hence instant received wisdom is created. "It's Saigon all over again!". Will last a few days.
And, sure, he's upsetting some "muscular" liberal types on his side of the political fence who are seeking either to rewrite history or start from a different place or imagine into being a different American public, but they'll soon be writing about other things.
The bottom line is this decision is driven by US domestic political calculation and it's not obviously flawed. We'll see how it pans out but for now I'll take Biden's judgment on that over yours, H's, Sandpit's et al any day of the week. I think one has to.
When the US Secretary of State is being asked if scenes from Kabul remind him of Saigon, then the comparison is sticking.
Vietnam still very much resonates in the USA, even nearly five decades later, as one of America’s biggest screw-ups. The pictures of the Chinooks in Kabul today are identical to those from the fall of Saigon in 1975, when the world’s superpower was forced to retreat. Those pictures are already on every front page and TV screen, and can’t be unseen.
I'm not saying this isn't a big and bad story for Joe Biden. It's certainly the 1st and (right now) the 2nd too. What I'm taking issue with is the ludicrous assertions of his presidency being defined and doomed by it. And I'm sorry but I can't help noticing that most of this is coming from people who have been strikingly jaundiced against Biden for a long time.
LBJ and Nixon and Ford were defined by Vietnam ( LBJ by civil rights and the Great Society and Nixon by Watergate too), Carter by the Iran hostage crisis, Reagan by setting the stage to end the Cold War, Bush 41 by the Gulf War and breaking his tax pledge, Bill Clinton by Monica, Dubya by 9/11 and his response to it, Obama by being the first black president and Obamacare, Trump by his failure on Covid.
Biden will almost certainly be defined by this unless he does something spectacular in the rest of his term
This is the final leg of the withdrawal the American public want. The Taliban back in power in Afghanistan is priced in. It's only the 7th month of his presidency. He is implementing the plan of his predecessor. Based on all logic - a Western specialty per Leon - this is unlikely to define his term in office and even less likely to doom him at the polls should he seek a 2nd term.
The American public want mutually exclusive things - they might want American troops out of Afghanistan, but sure as hell don’t want the place to become a failed state run by terrorists who hate us.
It’s the job of the politicians to thread the needle, to work through what’s possible and sell it to the public. It’s clear that both the incumbent president and his predecessor have screwed this one up massively.
Isn't it too early to know what the American public think about this?
I think reading the minds of the US public is a mere bagatelle for the experts of PB.
It doesn't take a world class phrenologist to deduce that these terrible images and stories will not play well for Joe Biden, even if he is enjoying his holiday
The photos of cutting your losses are never going to look good, but the idea this defines Biden's presidency is crazy. Afghanistan will be looked back on as a mistaken, failed war. But it will not be Biden's mistaken, failed war. The fact he has done this so early in his presidency us exactly why the comparisons to LBJ are off the mark.
It really depends how bad it gets from here
If, somehow, the evacuation is done, no hostages are taken, and the Taliban are unusually merciful, and no terror is exported from Kabul, then yes, Biden could easily shrug it off
But those are enormous IFs. And multiple.
The evacuation might be chaotic and bloody (it doesn't look good so far), the Taliban might easily take hostages, we could have four years of videos of Taliban beheadings, stonings, amputations, women in shrouds, and, worst of all for Biden, if there is one big terror attack on America which is traced back to Taliban ruled Afghanistan, he is toast
This is already the most embarrassing foreign policy episode for America in decades; the auguries for Biden are bad
In foreign policy terms, today is certainly the worst event that has happened in my lifetime. We are fleeing from a supposedly allied country in complete panic as it is overrun by violent Islamic fundamentalists; embassies being evacuated, thousands desperately fleeing, leaving many others to certain torture, rape, slavery and death. Our politicians look like they have no clue about what they are doing and were as surprised as everyone else with what happened. More than anything else, they look like they don't really give a damn; as if the idea of projecting power in the world is an awkward legacy of a bygone era. They will hand it all over to Russia and China, who will carry on with their modern version of pre colonial mercantilism, in doing so abandoning the rule based international order that took a century to build up.
Purely and simply it is a strategic retreat. But it may well be that it this is what western populations want, and if it is, it won't necessarily harm governments politically in the way we expect it to.
All true
The only bit I might argue with is "strategic retreat" - it feels more like hysterical flight
America, in particular, seems to have lost all self confidence in about ten short years. Maybe it started with 9/11, but it has accelerated greatly since 2010. And without America's leadership the West is in grave trouble
Also, it does not have to be like this. The West still has so much going for it - not least, political and intellectual freedom (even if we are determined to destroy this with Wokeness)
We really need some fucking great leaders to shake us out of this nonsensical spiral of doom. We need rid of Woke, as well, as the Russians and Chinese are clearly using it, via social media, to undermine our self esteem, in quite crucial ways
This is indeed shaping up as a complex and difficult century for the West to navigate but so long as we have what others don't have - the ability to think logically - we can, I think, be optimistic.
There is no logic in self hatred and weak capitulation, which is all we are getting from most western leaders at the moment
Maybe the reality of every western government that their electorates have had enough of foreign military interventions
For now, if we get 9/11 2 they will change their mind
It is up to the security and intelligence forces of our countries to defend us from terrorist attack, not go and invade foreign countries
We had them before the invasion, it did not stop 9/11.
Terrorists only need to get through once, having Afghanistan as a base to train jihadis for terrorism on the West means there are far more for the intelligence services to try and stop
What the hell is going on in Afghanistan? Did Biden think he’s just abandon the place to the Taliban, as opposed to being in the slightest bit organised about withdrawing troops?
The American troops left on the qt, so this was Al ays inevitable.
However, Trump announced the withdrawal last year so Biden was an is in a complete no win situation.
Keep the troops there and the GOP would criticise everyday hand injury, leave and suffer the pain and embarrassment of leaving.
By doing it now through it will be forgotten before the next election comes along.
Of course it was always going to be a tricky situation to manage, but pretty much any way would have been better than having to land Chinooks on the roof of your own embassy to get the diplomats out.
Those photos will define Biden’s presidency, it’s reminiscent of the fall of Saigon five decades ago, as the American troops fled Vietnam in defeat.
The Saigon comparison is being overcooked imo. Ok, so there's a copter. What I don't see is it taking off the roof of the embassy amidst scenes of utter chaos with people hanging on for grim death to the undercarriage with their legs dangling in the air. And whether you agree or disagree with the withdrawal, the notion that this final leg of it, following his predecessor's plan and with public support, will define and condemn Joe Biden's presidency is absurd. Is it co-incidence that those pronouncing that it will are all people who were rather disappointed he beat Trump in the election? I think not.
You're completely wrong. The photos of the two "chinooky" choppers on both US embassies - Saigon, Kabul - are now going absolutely viral
Yep, we have photos of copters. It's too tempting for many. Hence instant received wisdom is created. "It's Saigon all over again!". Will last a few days.
And, sure, he's upsetting some "muscular" liberal types on his side of the political fence who are seeking either to rewrite history or start from a different place or imagine into being a different American public, but they'll soon be writing about other things.
The bottom line is this decision is driven by US domestic political calculation and it's not obviously flawed. We'll see how it pans out but for now I'll take Biden's judgment on that over yours, H's, Sandpit's et al any day of the week. I think one has to.
When the US Secretary of State is being asked if scenes from Kabul remind him of Saigon, then the comparison is sticking.
Vietnam still very much resonates in the USA, even nearly five decades later, as one of America’s biggest screw-ups. The pictures of the Chinooks in Kabul today are identical to those from the fall of Saigon in 1975, when the world’s superpower was forced to retreat. Those pictures are already on every front page and TV screen, and can’t be unseen.
I'm not saying this isn't a big and bad story for Joe Biden. It's certainly the 1st and (right now) the 2nd too. What I'm taking issue with is the ludicrous assertions of his presidency being defined and doomed by it. And I'm sorry but I can't help noticing that most of this is coming from people who have been strikingly jaundiced against Biden for a long time.
LBJ and Nixon and Ford were defined by Vietnam ( LBJ by civil rights and the Great Society and Nixon by Watergate too), Carter by the Iran hostage crisis, Reagan by setting the stage to end the Cold War, Bush 41 by the Gulf War and breaking his tax pledge, Bill Clinton by Monica, Dubya by 9/11 and his response to it, Obama by being the first black president and Obamacare, Trump by his failure on Covid.
Biden will almost certainly be defined by this unless he does something spectacular in the rest of his term
This is the final leg of the withdrawal the American public want. The Taliban back in power in Afghanistan is priced in. It's only the 7th month of his presidency. He is implementing the plan of his predecessor. Based on all logic - a Western specialty per Leon - this is unlikely to define his term in office and even less likely to doom him at the polls should he seek a 2nd term.
The American public want mutually exclusive things - they might want American troops out of Afghanistan, but sure as hell don’t want the place to become a failed state run by terrorists who hate us.
It’s the job of the politicians to thread the needle, to work through what’s possible and sell it to the public. It’s clear that both the incumbent president and his predecessor have screwed this one up massively.
Isn't it too early to know what the American public think about this?
I think reading the minds of the US public is a mere bagatelle for the experts of PB.
It doesn't take a world class phrenologist to deduce that these terrible images and stories will not play well for Joe Biden, even if he is enjoying his holiday
The photos of cutting your losses are never going to look good, but the idea this defines Biden's presidency is crazy. Afghanistan will be looked back on as a mistaken, failed war. But it will not be Biden's mistaken, failed war. The fact he has done this so early in his presidency us exactly why the comparisons to LBJ are off the mark.
It really depends how bad it gets from here
If, somehow, the evacuation is done, no hostages are taken, and the Taliban are unusually merciful, and no terror is exported from Kabul, then yes, Biden could easily shrug it off
But those are enormous IFs. And multiple.
The evacuation might be chaotic and bloody (it doesn't look good so far), the Taliban might easily take hostages, we could have four years of videos of Taliban beheadings, stonings, amputations, women in shrouds, and, worst of all for Biden, if there is one big terror attack on America which is traced back to Taliban ruled Afghanistan, he is toast
This is already the most embarrassing foreign policy episode for America in decades; the auguries for Biden are bad
In foreign policy terms, today is certainly the worst event that has happened in my lifetime. We are fleeing from a supposedly allied country in complete panic as it is overrun by violent Islamic fundamentalists; embassies being evacuated, thousands desperately fleeing, leaving many others to certain torture, rape, slavery and death. Our politicians look like they have no clue about what they are doing and were as surprised as everyone else with what happened. More than anything else, they look like they don't really give a damn; as if the idea of projecting power in the world is an awkward legacy of a bygone era. They will hand it all over to Russia and China, who will carry on with their modern version of pre colonial mercantilism, in doing so abandoning the rule based international order that took a century to build up.
Purely and simply it is a strategic retreat. But it may well be that it this is what western populations want, and if it is, it won't necessarily harm governments politically in the way we expect it to.
All true
The only bit I might argue with is "strategic retreat" - it feels more like hysterical flight
America, in particular, seems to have lost all self confidence in about ten short years. Maybe it started with 9/11, but it has accelerated greatly since 2010. And without America's leadership the West is in grave trouble
Also, it does not have to be like this. The West still has so much going for it - not least, political and intellectual freedom (even if we are determined to destroy this with Wokeness)
We really need some fucking great leaders to shake us out of this nonsensical spiral of doom. We need rid of Woke, as well, as the Russians and Chinese are clearly using it, via social media, to undermine our self esteem, in quite crucial ways
This is indeed shaping up as a complex and difficult century for the West to navigate but so long as we have what others don't have - the ability to think logically - we can, I think, be optimistic.
There is no logic in self hatred and weak capitulation, which is all we are getting from most western leaders at the moment
Well I was just kidding with Leon there, trying to prod him into elaborating on his phrase "logical western thinking".
Liking your new Mitt Romney crush btw. Is it because he's named after a place in Essex?
There’s a place called “Mitt” in Essex? I was aware of the Romney Marsh in Kent but Mitt, Essex escaped me.
What the hell is going on in Afghanistan? Did Biden think he’s just abandon the place to the Taliban, as opposed to being in the slightest bit organised about withdrawing troops?
The American troops left on the qt, so this was Al ays inevitable.
However, Trump announced the withdrawal last year so Biden was an is in a complete no win situation.
Keep the troops there and the GOP would criticise everyday hand injury, leave and suffer the pain and embarrassment of leaving.
By doing it now through it will be forgotten before the next election comes along.
Of course it was always going to be a tricky situation to manage, but pretty much any way would have been better than having to land Chinooks on the roof of your own embassy to get the diplomats out.
Those photos will define Biden’s presidency, it’s reminiscent of the fall of Saigon five decades ago, as the American troops fled Vietnam in defeat.
The Saigon comparison is being overcooked imo. Ok, so there's a copter. What I don't see is it taking off the roof of the embassy amidst scenes of utter chaos with people hanging on for grim death to the undercarriage with their legs dangling in the air. And whether you agree or disagree with the withdrawal, the notion that this final leg of it, following his predecessor's plan and with public support, will define and condemn Joe Biden's presidency is absurd. Is it co-incidence that those pronouncing that it will are all people who were rather disappointed he beat Trump in the election? I think not.
You're completely wrong. The photos of the two "chinooky" choppers on both US embassies - Saigon, Kabul - are now going absolutely viral
Yep, we have photos of copters. It's too tempting for many. Hence instant received wisdom is created. "It's Saigon all over again!". Will last a few days.
And, sure, he's upsetting some "muscular" liberal types on his side of the political fence who are seeking either to rewrite history or start from a different place or imagine into being a different American public, but they'll soon be writing about other things.
The bottom line is this decision is driven by US domestic political calculation and it's not obviously flawed. We'll see how it pans out but for now I'll take Biden's judgment on that over yours, H's, Sandpit's et al any day of the week. I think one has to.
When the US Secretary of State is being asked if scenes from Kabul remind him of Saigon, then the comparison is sticking.
Vietnam still very much resonates in the USA, even nearly five decades later, as one of America’s biggest screw-ups. The pictures of the Chinooks in Kabul today are identical to those from the fall of Saigon in 1975, when the world’s superpower was forced to retreat. Those pictures are already on every front page and TV screen, and can’t be unseen.
I'm not saying this isn't a big and bad story for Joe Biden. It's certainly the 1st and (right now) the 2nd too. What I'm taking issue with is the ludicrous assertions of his presidency being defined and doomed by it. And I'm sorry but I can't help noticing that most of this is coming from people who have been strikingly jaundiced against Biden for a long time.
LBJ and Nixon and Ford were defined by Vietnam ( LBJ by civil rights and the Great Society and Nixon by Watergate too), Carter by the Iran hostage crisis, Reagan by setting the stage to end the Cold War, Bush 41 by the Gulf War and breaking his tax pledge, Bill Clinton by Monica, Dubya by 9/11 and his response to it, Obama by being the first black president and Obamacare, Trump by his failure on Covid.
Biden will almost certainly be defined by this unless he does something spectacular in the rest of his term
This is the final leg of the withdrawal the American public want. The Taliban back in power in Afghanistan is priced in. It's only the 7th month of his presidency. He is implementing the plan of his predecessor. Based on all logic - a Western specialty per Leon - this is unlikely to define his term in office and even less likely to doom him at the polls should he seek a 2nd term.
The American public want mutually exclusive things - they might want American troops out of Afghanistan, but sure as hell don’t want the place to become a failed state run by terrorists who hate us.
It’s the job of the politicians to thread the needle, to work through what’s possible and sell it to the public. It’s clear that both the incumbent president and his predecessor have screwed this one up massively.
Isn't it too early to know what the American public think about this?
I think reading the minds of the US public is a mere bagatelle for the experts of PB.
It doesn't take a world class phrenologist to deduce that these terrible images and stories will not play well for Joe Biden, even if he is enjoying his holiday
The photos of cutting your losses are never going to look good, but the idea this defines Biden's presidency is crazy. Afghanistan will be looked back on as a mistaken, failed war. But it will not be Biden's mistaken, failed war. The fact he has done this so early in his presidency us exactly why the comparisons to LBJ are off the mark.
It really depends how bad it gets from here
If, somehow, the evacuation is done, no hostages are taken, and the Taliban are unusually merciful, and no terror is exported from Kabul, then yes, Biden could easily shrug it off
But those are enormous IFs. And multiple.
The evacuation might be chaotic and bloody (it doesn't look good so far), the Taliban might easily take hostages, we could have four years of videos of Taliban beheadings, stonings, amputations, women in shrouds, and, worst of all for Biden, if there is one big terror attack on America which is traced back to Taliban ruled Afghanistan, he is toast
This is already the most embarrassing foreign policy episode for America in decades; the auguries for Biden are bad
In foreign policy terms, today is certainly the worst event that has happened in my lifetime. We are fleeing from a supposedly allied country in complete panic as it is overrun by violent Islamic fundamentalists; embassies being evacuated, thousands desperately fleeing, leaving many others to certain torture, rape, slavery and death. Our politicians look like they have no clue about what they are doing and were as surprised as everyone else with what happened. More than anything else, they look like they don't really give a damn; as if the idea of projecting power in the world is an awkward legacy of a bygone era. They will hand it all over to Russia and China, who will carry on with their modern version of pre colonial mercantilism, in doing so abandoning the rule based international order that took a century to build up.
Purely and simply it is a strategic retreat. But it may well be that it this is what western populations want, and if it is, it won't necessarily harm governments politically in the way we expect it to.
All true
The only bit I might argue with is "strategic retreat" - it feels more like hysterical flight
America, in particular, seems to have lost all self confidence in about ten short years. Maybe it started with 9/11, but it has accelerated greatly since 2010. And without America's leadership the West is in grave trouble
Also, it does not have to be like this. The West still has so much going for it - not least, political and intellectual freedom (even if we are determined to destroy this with Wokeness)
We really need some fucking great leaders to shake us out of this nonsensical spiral of doom. We need rid of Woke, as well, as the Russians and Chinese are clearly using it, via social media, to undermine our self esteem, in quite crucial ways
This is indeed shaping up as a complex and difficult century for the West to navigate but so long as we have what others don't have - the ability to think logically - we can, I think, be optimistic.
There is no logic in self hatred and weak capitulation, which is all we are getting from most western leaders at the moment
Well I was just kidding with Leon there, trying to prod him into elaborating on his phrase "logical western thinking".
Liking your new Mitt Romney crush btw. Is it because he's named after a place in Essex?
Well I will take up that baton.
Why is the west rich? I would argue that a massive contibutory factor is the scientific method. We are so immersed in this being the 'correct' way of thinking that we hardly notice it - but it is far from the only way of approaching the world, as the medievalists which dominate across parts of the Islamic world and other parts of the third world show. Now, arguably this particular philosophical approach came from the thinking of the ancient Greeks. So it is a western invention. But there is no reason why this approach should be unique to the west.1000 years ago, of course, the west was mired in superstition while the Islamic world led in use of the scientific method. But I don't think it would be too controversial to say much of the Islamic world today is not exactly hot on the Socratic/Cartesian approaches to critical analysis.
What the hell is going on in Afghanistan? Did Biden think he’s just abandon the place to the Taliban, as opposed to being in the slightest bit organised about withdrawing troops?
The American troops left on the qt, so this was Al ays inevitable.
However, Trump announced the withdrawal last year so Biden was an is in a complete no win situation.
Keep the troops there and the GOP would criticise everyday hand injury, leave and suffer the pain and embarrassment of leaving.
By doing it now through it will be forgotten before the next election comes along.
Of course it was always going to be a tricky situation to manage, but pretty much any way would have been better than having to land Chinooks on the roof of your own embassy to get the diplomats out.
Those photos will define Biden’s presidency, it’s reminiscent of the fall of Saigon five decades ago, as the American troops fled Vietnam in defeat.
The Saigon comparison is being overcooked imo. Ok, so there's a copter. What I don't see is it taking off the roof of the embassy amidst scenes of utter chaos with people hanging on for grim death to the undercarriage with their legs dangling in the air. And whether you agree or disagree with the withdrawal, the notion that this final leg of it, following his predecessor's plan and with public support, will define and condemn Joe Biden's presidency is absurd. Is it co-incidence that those pronouncing that it will are all people who were rather disappointed he beat Trump in the election? I think not.
You're completely wrong. The photos of the two "chinooky" choppers on both US embassies - Saigon, Kabul - are now going absolutely viral
Yep, we have photos of copters. It's too tempting for many. Hence instant received wisdom is created. "It's Saigon all over again!". Will last a few days.
And, sure, he's upsetting some "muscular" liberal types on his side of the political fence who are seeking either to rewrite history or start from a different place or imagine into being a different American public, but they'll soon be writing about other things.
The bottom line is this decision is driven by US domestic political calculation and it's not obviously flawed. We'll see how it pans out but for now I'll take Biden's judgment on that over yours, H's, Sandpit's et al any day of the week. I think one has to.
When the US Secretary of State is being asked if scenes from Kabul remind him of Saigon, then the comparison is sticking.
Vietnam still very much resonates in the USA, even nearly five decades later, as one of America’s biggest screw-ups. The pictures of the Chinooks in Kabul today are identical to those from the fall of Saigon in 1975, when the world’s superpower was forced to retreat. Those pictures are already on every front page and TV screen, and can’t be unseen.
I'm not saying this isn't a big and bad story for Joe Biden. It's certainly the 1st and (right now) the 2nd too. What I'm taking issue with is the ludicrous assertions of his presidency being defined and doomed by it. And I'm sorry but I can't help noticing that most of this is coming from people who have been strikingly jaundiced against Biden for a long time.
LBJ and Nixon and Ford were defined by Vietnam ( LBJ by civil rights and the Great Society and Nixon by Watergate too), Carter by the Iran hostage crisis, Reagan by setting the stage to end the Cold War, Bush 41 by the Gulf War and breaking his tax pledge, Bill Clinton by Monica, Dubya by 9/11 and his response to it, Obama by being the first black president and Obamacare, Trump by his failure on Covid.
Biden will almost certainly be defined by this unless he does something spectacular in the rest of his term
This is the final leg of the withdrawal the American public want. The Taliban back in power in Afghanistan is priced in. It's only the 7th month of his presidency. He is implementing the plan of his predecessor. Based on all logic - a Western specialty per Leon - this is unlikely to define his term in office and even less likely to doom him at the polls should he seek a 2nd term.
The American public want mutually exclusive things - they might want American troops out of Afghanistan, but sure as hell don’t want the place to become a failed state run by terrorists who hate us.
It’s the job of the politicians to thread the needle, to work through what’s possible and sell it to the public. It’s clear that both the incumbent president and his predecessor have screwed this one up massively.
Isn't it too early to know what the American public think about this?
I think reading the minds of the US public is a mere bagatelle for the experts of PB.
It doesn't take a world class phrenologist to deduce that these terrible images and stories will not play well for Joe Biden, even if he is enjoying his holiday
The photos of cutting your losses are never going to look good, but the idea this defines Biden's presidency is crazy. Afghanistan will be looked back on as a mistaken, failed war. But it will not be Biden's mistaken, failed war. The fact he has done this so early in his presidency us exactly why the comparisons to LBJ are off the mark.
It really depends how bad it gets from here
If, somehow, the evacuation is done, no hostages are taken, and the Taliban are unusually merciful, and no terror is exported from Kabul, then yes, Biden could easily shrug it off
But those are enormous IFs. And multiple.
The evacuation might be chaotic and bloody (it doesn't look good so far), the Taliban might easily take hostages, we could have four years of videos of Taliban beheadings, stonings, amputations, women in shrouds, and, worst of all for Biden, if there is one big terror attack on America which is traced back to Taliban ruled Afghanistan, he is toast
This is already the most embarrassing foreign policy episode for America in decades; the auguries for Biden are bad
In foreign policy terms, today is certainly the worst event that has happened in my lifetime. We are fleeing from a supposedly allied country in complete panic as it is overrun by violent Islamic fundamentalists; embassies being evacuated, thousands desperately fleeing, leaving many others to certain torture, rape, slavery and death. Our politicians look like they have no clue about what they are doing and were as surprised as everyone else with what happened. More than anything else, they look like they don't really give a damn; as if the idea of projecting power in the world is an awkward legacy of a bygone era. They will hand it all over to Russia and China, who will carry on with their modern version of pre colonial mercantilism, in doing so abandoning the rule based international order that took a century to build up.
Purely and simply it is a strategic retreat. But it may well be that it this is what western populations want, and if it is, it won't necessarily harm governments politically in the way we expect it to.
All true
The only bit I might argue with is "strategic retreat" - it feels more like hysterical flight
America, in particular, seems to have lost all self confidence in about ten short years. Maybe it started with 9/11, but it has accelerated greatly since 2010. And without America's leadership the West is in grave trouble
Also, it does not have to be like this. The West still has so much going for it - not least, political and intellectual freedom (even if we are determined to destroy this with Wokeness)
We really need some fucking great leaders to shake us out of this nonsensical spiral of doom. We need rid of Woke, as well, as the Russians and Chinese are clearly using it, via social media, to undermine our self esteem, in quite crucial ways
This is indeed shaping up as a complex and difficult century for the West to navigate but so long as we have what others don't have - the ability to think logically - we can, I think, be optimistic.
There is no logic in self hatred and weak capitulation, which is all we are getting from most western leaders at the moment
Well I was just kidding with Leon there, trying to prod him into elaborating on his phrase "logical western thinking".
Liking your new Mitt Romney crush btw. Is it because he's named after a place in Essex?
Well I will take up that baton.
Why is the west rich? I would argue that a massive contibutory factor is the scientific method. We are so immersed in this being the 'correct' way of thinking that we hardly notice it - but it is far from the only way of approaching the world, as the medievalists which dominate across parts of the Islamic world and other parts of the third world show. Now, arguably this particular philosophical approach came from the thinking of the ancient Greeks. So it is a western invention. But there is no reason why this approach should be unique to the west.1000 years ago, of course, the west was mired in superstition while the Islamic world led in use of the scientific method. But I don't think it would be too controversial to say much of the Islamic world today is not exactly hot on the Socratic/Cartesian approaches to critical analysis.
Since when did the Greeks come up with the scientific method? They were all about logical deduction from first principles. Nothing to be sniffed at compared to the various superstitions of the Middle Ages, Islamdom, Hindustan etc, but they did next to nothing on empiricism. The scientific method was a proto-Enlightenment, 17th Century thing.
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
Well someone has got to leave next, and as this is a betting site, odds as to who that might be seems a more than relevant point for discussion.
Not right now.. Dickson used to post lots of pointless betting odds. Boris is going nowhere.. who his successor is irrelevant right now.
Huh? This is (supposedly) a political betting blog. I’m fascinated by your proposition that some political betting odds are “pointless”. Please show your workings.
According to the markets, there is actually a percentage of the punting public who do think that Johnson is going. That’s the fun! Put your money where your mouth is.
D+
All the ones you used to.post at 6 am whom few if anyone was interested in and you got banned for iirc I seem remember that you flooded the site with crap.
Huh? New one on me.
I’ve been banned for being rude to Mark Senior, for allegedly having a fake email address (untrue: it’s the one I’m still using right now 15 years later, and Robert Smithson recently contacted me on), for posting Scottish sub-samples, for sticking up for my bullied colleague James Kelly, and just generally for being an annoying Jock, but I cannot recall ever being banned for posting odds. On a betting blog that would be truly bizarre.
A few more betting tips on this blog wouldn't go amiss. Indeed I like @Quincel Saturday mornings slot for this very reason.
Possibly Raab next out in view of the weekends events in Central Asia?
25/1 with WH, 16/1 on Wallace. Someone needs to carry the can for this intelligence failure.
Not COVID-19 related, however, this is exciting news I really wanted to share. Phase I trials of Moderna's HIV vaccine candidate, mRNA-1644, which uses the same mRNA technology as our COVID-19 vaccine, is expected to begin clinical trials this week.
Some promising ideas on how mRNA vaccines could help fight Cancer as well. One of the lasting legacies of Covid in a positive way could be a major advancement in treatment of these horrible diseases.
I bet China could sort out all these stupid Islamic, Israeli and MENA problems in a jiffy. It would involve many millions dying, but they'd get it done
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
In 1939 we declared war on Germany, not vice versa. Should we not have done that?
My attitude to this disaster, and it is a disaster, is that Trump commenced the withdrawal and Biden concluded it
I would say that what has transpired today is an astonishing failure of military intelligence and of course Biden will be heavily criticised, as will Boris for his comments a few weeks ago, but I very much doubt the electorates of the US and UK will want either Biden or Boris to re-enter the affray with all the consequences that could follow
If blame is being apportioned then Trump, Biden, the intelligence services and to a lesser degree Boris, as he had no choice but to follow the US, as it is inconceivable the UK could have stood alone in this theatre of war, all have questions to answer
A Tory donor and his son are facing questions about two private companies they run offering Covid-19 PCR tests for travellers, amid complaints about poor service.
Dr Ashraf Chohan, founder and chair of Conservative Friends of the NHS, which aims to forge ties between politicians and healthcare workers in the private and public sectors, is the sole director of 1Rapid Clinics, a government-approved Covid-19 testing company that some customers have claimed sent results back late, lost samples and refused refunds.
Chohan’s testing company is just one of a number of private firms with links to the Conservatives. Details of his involvement have emerged amid concern that the for-profit Covid testing regime put in place by the government is on the brink of collapse.
BREAKING: President Biden orders 1,000 more paratroopers from 82nd Airborne to Kabul to evacuate Americans. 6,000 U.S. troops will now be on the ground in Afghanistan.
Hard to argue with Jon Sopel on this front Arguments can be made about the US policy to pull out – there is a strong feeling that US involvement couldn’t continue ad infinitum.
But the manner of the withdrawal has been hapless, with a mass of miscalculation, warnings ignored, and – critically – a wild over-estimation of the capability of the American-trained Afghan armed forces.
Biden was told the Afghan forces could hold out for at least eighteen months. Bad advice.
Someone on here mentioned Chernobyl this evening. Maybe it is similar. Everyone from the ground up lying about the situation to their next in command all the way up to Biden.
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
In 1939 we declared war on Germany, not vice versa. Should we not have done that?
In 1938 it seems BigG would have been cheering on Neville Chamberlain as he proclaimed 'peace in our time' after the Munich Agreement
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
In 1939 we declared war on Germany, not vice versa. Should we not have done that?
JUST IN: Hamid Karzai Int'l Airport in Kabul is still taking constant fire and U.S. forces are attempting to take care of the threats, per journalist on the ground.
More US troops are flooding in to the airport. BUT the Tailban are sweeping into Kabul, in Humvees
"Thousands of #Taliban arrived from Logar & other provinces of #Afghanistan at #Kabul to secure the capital as the #US is trying to evacuate several Afghans trapped in the airport."
The question is what do the US actually have on the ground to respond. If its essentially a reinforced infantry battalion plus some specialists and the rump of what was left of the presence then they have got it wrong. What they needed was more troops & field guns which should be forward deployed with 82nd airborne. My understanding is that the British were coming with counter battery radar but whether thays even there is a unknown.
Taking fire could be anything; mortars, rockets , some geezers pot shotting long range with machine guns or rifles. What it does suggest is the lack of heavy cordon outside the airport grounds which is essential to push the threat out
The Pentagon has just announced more deployments but this seems to be of troops already announced sitting in Kuwait on forward deployment. There is no doubt this evacuation has been sluggish because theyve been caught out. If the UK expected a 3 week operation the US was probably on the same timeline. Only today did the French announce air tranbsport deployments to Kabul, other states are sending air force transports now that commercial flights have ceased which they appear to have not factored in until the moment it happened.
The flat reality is the announced 3000 then 5000 troop deployment isnt fully on the ground and maybe only half on the ground. If it was fully there this would be a different security situation.
In effect the situation has been entirely outsourced to the Taliban to decide how hard this gets.
The US and UK forces have found themselves in a Dunkirk type of situation, with an evacuation/escape. They need to keep control of the airport, so that they can bring in more forces or get as many people out as possible, a bit like the Battle of the Alamo or Battle of the Little Bighorn.
The problem is that the Taliban can bring in more forces from around Afghanistan into Kabul. The Americans need to remember the fall of Singapore in 1942, which was thought to be impregnable from the land. About 80,000 British, Indian and Australian troops in Singapore became prisoners of war, despite outnumbering the Japanese by 3 to 1. It may be too risky to reinforce the existing forces as the reinforcements may also be at risk, as happened in the Battle of Crete in 1941. The Americans may have to choose between a very bad outcome and a major disaster.
I bet China could sort out all these stupid Islamic, Israeli and MENA problems in a jiffy. It would involve many millions dying, but they'd get it done
The evidence of the Uighurs genocide is that it takes more than a jiffy, but also that China takes a very dim view of Islam. I don't think they are fond of any foreign religion, or even some domestic ones like Falun gong.
Well someone has got to leave next, and as this is a betting site, odds as to who that might be seems a more than relevant point for discussion.
Not right now.. Dickson used to post lots of pointless betting odds. Boris is going nowhere.. who his successor is irrelevant right now.
Huh? This is (supposedly) a political betting blog. I’m fascinated by your proposition that some political betting odds are “pointless”. Please show your workings.
According to the markets, there is actually a percentage of the punting public who do think that Johnson is going. That’s the fun! Put your money where your mouth is.
D+
All the ones you used to.post at 6 am whom few if anyone was interested in and you got banned for iirc I seem remember that you flooded the site with crap.
Huh? New one on me.
I’ve been banned for being rude to Mark Senior, for allegedly having a fake email address (untrue: it’s the one I’m still using right now 15 years later, and Robert Smithson recently contacted me on), for posting Scottish sub-samples, for sticking up for my bullied colleague James Kelly, and just generally for being an annoying Jock, but I cannot recall ever being banned for posting odds. On a betting blog that would be truly bizarre.
A few more betting tips on this blog wouldn't go amiss. Indeed I like @Quincel Saturday mornings slot for this very reason.
Possibly Raab next out in view of the weekends events in Central Asia?
25/1 with WH, 16/1 on Wallace. Someone needs to carry the can for this intelligence failure.
Surely if anybody's going to carry the can for an intelligence failure Gavin Williamson would have to be the favourite?
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
In 1939 we declared war on Germany, not vice versa. Should we not have done that?
In 1938 it seems BigG would have been cheering on Neville Chamberlain as he proclaimed 'peace in our time' after the Munich Agreement
It was not remotely similar as you well know and remember I was born when Hitler's bombs were exploding over our house in Manchester
What actually happened to the Afghan army? Did they get whupped, or did they just melt away? It seems - from the limited BBC reporting anyway over the last few weeks - that they didn't lose lots of major engagements, they just...melted away. But what is the reality?
"Scenes from #Kabul Airport, #Afghanistan showing people boarding what appears to a C17 (please correct me if wrong) and what appears to be gunfire in the air in the distance."
And so sad. Imagine the terror in that airport right now. A lot of people will know that if they can't get out of the country ASAFP then the Taliban will find them, torture them, and kill them
It did not have to be like this, even if Biden WAS determined to do his stupid withdrawal
Trump's withdrawal.
This is on both of them. Trump AND Biden. But Biden will get more blame because he ordered this withdrawal in this insane manner (against, it seems, the advice of many of his military experts)
BIden's judgement on this has been poor certainly, but Trump wanted them out even sooner and faster.
I would say it's primarily on Trump, but with Biden also sharing a smaller proportion of the responsibility.
More importantly, Biden was holding the parcel when the music stopped.
It's how the Gods punish those who seek power.
Biden has massively fucked up here. There might be fault elsewhere, but this is simply the worst political disaster ever. Worse than George III.
And Boris Johnson. Doing the exact same thing as Biden. You cannot criticise Biden and not Johnson without being a total hypocrite.
Of course you can.
The notion that the UK either would or should remain even after twenty years and a US withdrawal is completely farcical.
Someone as naive as HYUFD might think that we could remain fighting on our own and change the results after two decades with the Americans hasn't - but do you seriously believe that?
The result of the last 20 years is we avoided 9/11 2, Biden has just made Afghanistan a terrorist state again and sent the chances of 9/11 2 rocketing sadly
Terrorism never stopped you silly little man. Perhaps you didn't notice the recent history of Bali, Madrid, Mumbai and London.
No major attack on a western city on anything like the scale of 9/11, including 7/7
I'm not hugely sure you can say that the fact there's not been another 9/11 since 9/11 means everything done militarily since 9/11 justifies itself.
And if the Afghan military won't fight for their own country, why the feck should our forces personnel be putting their lives at risk?
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
In 1939 we declared war on Germany, not vice versa. Should we not have done that?
In 1938 it seems BigG would have been cheering on Neville Chamberlain as he proclaimed 'peace in our time' after the Munich Agreement
It was not remotely similar as you well know and remember I was born when Hitler's bombs were exploding over our house in Manchester
Well thank goodness it was Churchill who was PM then and saw us through it.
Remember appeasement was very popular at the time but Churchill realised promises from a tiger are worthless however unpopular that view might be, in the end it was he who was right not Halifax and Chamberlain.
No doubt Biden too may get a piece of paper from the Taliban promising no trouble at all, however it will soon prove worthless
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
In 1939 we declared war on Germany, not vice versa. Should we not have done that?
In 1938 it seems BigG would have been cheering on Neville Chamberlain as he proclaimed 'peace in our time' after the Munich Agreement
To be fair, since Chamberlain was the Conservative PM at the time, I suspect you above all others would have been cheering him on.
I fear something monstrous could happen at Kabul Airport in the next 24 hours
Alex Macheras @AlexInAir · 3m Unbelievable, desperate scenes at Kabul’s international airport. thousand of people, families, young children, all trying to leave #Kabul as the Taliban takes hold.
Chaos on the tarmac with people moving around between airline jets"
"The US aid spending watchdog for Afghanistan warned last month that the US military had little or no means of knowing the capability of the Afghan National Defense and Security forces (ANDSF) when required to operate independently of the US forces, despite spending $88.3bn on security-related reconstruction in Afghanistan up to March 2021.
...
The watchdog had, it said, repeatedly warned about “the corrosive effects of corruption” within the force. With its reliance on advanced equipment, and with widespread illiteracy in its ranks, the force could not reliably maintain its strength and combat readiness."
Even the bloody audit committee could tell.
The military industrial complex that demands these forever wars is all about the almighty dollar. All this "nation building" is just an excuse for getting suitably bribed congressmen to vote for huge blank checks for their equipment. Same reason why the Israel-Palestine conflict will never end.
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
In 1939 we declared war on Germany, not vice versa. Should we not have done that?
In 1938 it seems BigG would have been cheering on Neville Chamberlain as he proclaimed 'peace in our time' after the Munich Agreement
It was not remotely similar as you well know and remember I was born when Hitler's bombs were exploding over our house in Manchester
Well thank goodness it was Churchill who was PM then and saw us through it.
Remember appeasement was very popular at the time but Churchill realised promises from a tiger are worthless
You seem to want UK lives to be lost on a fight in a place that has been unstable for generations and on our when even the US has quit
What the hell is going on in Afghanistan? Did Biden think he’s just abandon the place to the Taliban, as opposed to being in the slightest bit organised about withdrawing troops?
The American troops left on the qt, so this was Al ays inevitable.
However, Trump announced the withdrawal last year so Biden was an is in a complete no win situation.
Keep the troops there and the GOP would criticise everyday hand injury, leave and suffer the pain and embarrassment of leaving.
By doing it now through it will be forgotten before the next election comes along.
Of course it was always going to be a tricky situation to manage, but pretty much any way would have been better than having to land Chinooks on the roof of your own embassy to get the diplomats out.
Those photos will define Biden’s presidency, it’s reminiscent of the fall of Saigon five decades ago, as the American troops fled Vietnam in defeat.
The Saigon comparison is being overcooked imo. Ok, so there's a copter. What I don't see is it taking off the roof of the embassy amidst scenes of utter chaos with people hanging on for grim death to the undercarriage with their legs dangling in the air. And whether you agree or disagree with the withdrawal, the notion that this final leg of it, following his predecessor's plan and with public support, will define and condemn Joe Biden's presidency is absurd. Is it co-incidence that those pronouncing that it will are all people who were rather disappointed he beat Trump in the election? I think not.
You're completely wrong. The photos of the two "chinooky" choppers on both US embassies - Saigon, Kabul - are now going absolutely viral
Yep, we have photos of copters. It's too tempting for many. Hence instant received wisdom is created. "It's Saigon all over again!". Will last a few days.
And, sure, he's upsetting some "muscular" liberal types on his side of the political fence who are seeking either to rewrite history or start from a different place or imagine into being a different American public, but they'll soon be writing about other things.
The bottom line is this decision is driven by US domestic political calculation and it's not obviously flawed. We'll see how it pans out but for now I'll take Biden's judgment on that over yours, H's, Sandpit's et al any day of the week. I think one has to.
When the US Secretary of State is being asked if scenes from Kabul remind him of Saigon, then the comparison is sticking.
Vietnam still very much resonates in the USA, even nearly five decades later, as one of America’s biggest screw-ups. The pictures of the Chinooks in Kabul today are identical to those from the fall of Saigon in 1975, when the world’s superpower was forced to retreat. Those pictures are already on every front page and TV screen, and can’t be unseen.
I'm not saying this isn't a big and bad story for Joe Biden. It's certainly the 1st and (right now) the 2nd too. What I'm taking issue with is the ludicrous assertions of his presidency being defined and doomed by it. And I'm sorry but I can't help noticing that most of this is coming from people who have been strikingly jaundiced against Biden for a long time.
LBJ and Nixon and Ford were defined by Vietnam ( LBJ by civil rights and the Great Society and Nixon by Watergate too), Carter by the Iran hostage crisis, Reagan by setting the stage to end the Cold War, Bush 41 by the Gulf War and breaking his tax pledge, Bill Clinton by Monica, Dubya by 9/11 and his response to it, Obama by being the first black president and Obamacare, Trump by his failure on Covid.
Biden will almost certainly be defined by this unless he does something spectacular in the rest of his term
This is the final leg of the withdrawal the American public want. The Taliban back in power in Afghanistan is priced in. It's only the 7th month of his presidency. He is implementing the plan of his predecessor. Based on all logic - a Western specialty per Leon - this is unlikely to define his term in office and even less likely to doom him at the polls should he seek a 2nd term.
The American public want mutually exclusive things - they might want American troops out of Afghanistan, but sure as hell don’t want the place to become a failed state run by terrorists who hate us.
It’s the job of the politicians to thread the needle, to work through what’s possible and sell it to the public. It’s clear that both the incumbent president and his predecessor have screwed this one up massively.
Isn't it too early to know what the American public think about this?
I think reading the minds of the US public is a mere bagatelle for the experts of PB.
It doesn't take a world class phrenologist to deduce that these terrible images and stories will not play well for Joe Biden, even if he is enjoying his holiday
The photos of cutting your losses are never going to look good, but the idea this defines Biden's presidency is crazy. Afghanistan will be looked back on as a mistaken, failed war. But it will not be Biden's mistaken, failed war. The fact he has done this so early in his presidency us exactly why the comparisons to LBJ are off the mark.
It really depends how bad it gets from here
If, somehow, the evacuation is done, no hostages are taken, and the Taliban are unusually merciful, and no terror is exported from Kabul, then yes, Biden could easily shrug it off
But those are enormous IFs. And multiple.
The evacuation might be chaotic and bloody (it doesn't look good so far), the Taliban might easily take hostages, we could have four years of videos of Taliban beheadings, stonings, amputations, women in shrouds, and, worst of all for Biden, if there is one big terror attack on America which is traced back to Taliban ruled Afghanistan, he is toast
This is already the most embarrassing foreign policy episode for America in decades; the auguries for Biden are bad
In foreign policy terms, today is certainly the worst event that has happened in my lifetime. We are fleeing from a supposedly allied country in complete panic as it is overrun by violent Islamic fundamentalists; embassies being evacuated, thousands desperately fleeing, leaving many others to certain torture, rape, slavery and death. Our politicians look like they have no clue about what they are doing and were as surprised as everyone else with what happened. More than anything else, they look like they don't really give a damn; as if the idea of projecting power in the world is an awkward legacy of a bygone era. They will hand it all over to Russia and China, who will carry on with their modern version of pre colonial mercantilism, in doing so abandoning the rule based international order that took a century to build up.
Purely and simply it is a strategic retreat. But it may well be that it this is what western populations want, and if it is, it won't necessarily harm governments politically in the way we expect it to.
All true
The only bit I might argue with is "strategic retreat" - it feels more like hysterical flight
America, in particular, seems to have lost all self confidence in about ten short years. Maybe it started with 9/11, but it has accelerated greatly since 2010. And without America's leadership the West is in grave trouble
Also, it does not have to be like this. The West still has so much going for it - not least, political and intellectual freedom (even if we are determined to destroy this with Wokeness)
We really need some fucking great leaders to shake us out of this nonsensical spiral of doom. We need rid of Woke, as well, as the Russians and Chinese are clearly using it, via social media, to undermine our self esteem, in quite crucial ways
This is indeed shaping up as a complex and difficult century for the West to navigate but so long as we have what others don't have - the ability to think logically - we can, I think, be optimistic.
There is no logic in self hatred and weak capitulation, which is all we are getting from most western leaders at the moment
Well I was just kidding with Leon there, trying to prod him into elaborating on his phrase "logical western thinking".
Liking your new Mitt Romney crush btw. Is it because he's named after a place in Essex?
No, in 2012 he was never going to beat Obama but now is his time
If only he could convince his party of that. Here's hoping.
Well someone has got to leave next, and as this is a betting site, odds as to who that might be seems a more than relevant point for discussion.
Not right now.. Dickson used to post lots of pointless betting odds. Boris is going nowhere.. who his successor is irrelevant right now.
Huh? This is (supposedly) a political betting blog. I’m fascinated by your proposition that some political betting odds are “pointless”. Please show your workings.
According to the markets, there is actually a percentage of the punting public who do think that Johnson is going. That’s the fun! Put your money where your mouth is.
D+
All the ones you used to.post at 6 am whom few if anyone was interested in and you got banned for iirc I seem remember that you flooded the site with crap.
Huh? New one on me.
I’ve been banned for being rude to Mark Senior, for allegedly having a fake email address (untrue: it’s the one I’m still using right now 15 years later, and Robert Smithson recently contacted me on), for posting Scottish sub-samples, for sticking up for my bullied colleague James Kelly, and just generally for being an annoying Jock, but I cannot recall ever being banned for posting odds. On a betting blog that would be truly bizarre.
A few more betting tips on this blog wouldn't go amiss. Indeed I like @Quincel Saturday mornings slot for this very reason.
Possibly Raab next out in view of the weekends events in Central Asia?
25/1 with WH, 16/1 on Wallace. Someone needs to carry the can for this intelligence failure.
Surely if anybody's going to carry the can for an intelligence failure Gavin Williamson would have to be the favourite?
The thing is that resignation requires a sense of honour, and sacking requires some backbone from the PM. Both are rare phenomena in the Tory Cabinet.
I am on Raab and Wallace for half the price of a pint.
"Scenes from #Kabul Airport, #Afghanistan showing people boarding what appears to a C17 (please correct me if wrong) and what appears to be gunfire in the air in the distance."
And so sad. Imagine the terror in that airport right now. A lot of people will know that if they can't get out of the country ASAFP then the Taliban will find them, torture them, and kill them
It did not have to be like this, even if Biden WAS determined to do his stupid withdrawal
Trump's withdrawal.
This is on both of them. Trump AND Biden. But Biden will get more blame because he ordered this withdrawal in this insane manner (against, it seems, the advice of many of his military experts)
BIden's judgement on this has been poor certainly, but Trump wanted them out even sooner and faster.
I would say it's primarily on Trump, but with Biden also sharing a smaller proportion of the responsibility.
More importantly, Biden was holding the parcel when the music stopped.
It's how the Gods punish those who seek power.
Biden has massively fucked up here. There might be fault elsewhere, but this is simply the worst political disaster ever. Worse than George III.
And Boris Johnson. Doing the exact same thing as Biden. You cannot criticise Biden and not Johnson without being a total hypocrite.
Of course you can.
The notion that the UK either would or should remain even after twenty years and a US withdrawal is completely farcical.
Someone as naive as HYUFD might think that we could remain fighting on our own and change the results after two decades with the Americans hasn't - but do you seriously believe that?
Its a joint withdrawal. As much on us as on them. No threat from the Taliban said Liar.
If the argument is now "the big boy made me do it" then we have literally no power or authority or purpose other than to bow and scrape to whatever America does.
I'm reasonably confident that isn't your perspective and it certainly isn't the Essicks hypocrite's.
America has invested trillions and two decades with us trying and failing to defeat the Taliban and build up the Afghani military to defend their own nation.
If after two decades they've failed and are giving up then absolutely I believe we have no power, or authority, or purpose to prolong this another decade or two.
I speculated at the time of the Olympics that the success of Team GB with a disproportionate number of Scots proudly wearing the badge and waving the Union Jack just might have some effect. We are about to get a repeat for the para-Olympics.
We shall see. The list of obvious gains from the Union (vaccines, furlough, economic growth) is pretty strong at the moment but there is a lot of emotion in play.
On the Olympic front I don't see why it would have a lasting affect this time thta it did not last time, given sentiment remains pretty much as it was.
I'm not at all convinced it will make any difference at all. All the identity-driven voters - those liable to be swayed by such symbolic matters as who appears under what flag at a sporting event - will think as well or as badly of Britain after the Olympics as they did before.
The survival of the Union will be determined by the section of the Scottish population that has no emotional attachment to the British state whatsoever but isn't desperate to be rid of it either, and they'll make their decision based on the perceived cost/benefit balance of the arrangement to themselves and their communities. Basically it's all about the money.
One of the more astute observations on this topic on PB. As I keep telling FUDHY and other bampots, Unionists can never win by solely appealing to their core vote. And nor can we sovereigntists. It is the huge number of ‘neutrals’, probably the majority, who will decide this. Thus far the pro-independence parties are doing a better job of appealing to this group of ordinary Scots than Johnson’s team.
Where I disagree with you is that Unionists can win by playing ‘transactional politics’.
I'm not so sure, simply because it appears to have worked in the past and still appears to be working now. Consider:
1. From the 2011 Census returns, we know that the responses of 62% of the Scottish population to the national identity question indicated that they identified as "Scottish only." As distinct from 27% who answered "Scottish & British" or "British only," the balance being made up by a modest number of English people (2%) and various other bits and pieces
2. From the 2014 referendum, we know that 45% of that part of the Scottish electorate who chose to turn out voted for independence
Therefore, at a guess, something like 25-30% of all Scots who identified solely as Scottish, and who chose to turn out in 2014, must also have voted to uphold the British state. If they felt no attachment to Britain yet voted to keep it anyway, then I struggle to think of any other explanation than that they were afraid of being left worse off - whether those concerns centred on currency-related issues, terms of trade, state pensions, fiscal transfers, taxation and spending policies post-independence, or some combination of these things.
In short, it seems reasonable to assume that these voters were convinced that upholding the Union was to their material advantage. The alternatives: a desire to maintain a common military force (directed against whom - the Vikings?), masochism and stupidity don't seem plausible.
The fact that, seven years on from the independence referendum and a number of elections, controversies and crises later, the needle of public opinion still hasn't moved decisively in one direction or another, suggests that the transactional relationship voters still exist in large numbers and are quite possibly as numerous as before. The challenge which faced Mr Salmond's administration pre-2014, and that which faces Ms Sturgeon's now, is, I would therefore suggest, fundamentally the same: come up with a plausible vision of independence that convinces these voters that they will ideally be no worse off; or, at a stretch, that they won't be hit in the wallet very hard and the effects are liable to be short-lived. If they can do that then, given that the conviction Unionist vote is a relatively small minority (certainly no more than 30%,) they shall inevitably win in the end. Simple.
Good, comprehensive post. And utterly wrong! But I won’t expand on that. Never intervene when your opponents are making an error 😊
I'm not at all sure who is meant to be the opponent here. I'm just taking an interest in the subject matter. Goodness knows why - something to pass a not particularly exciting Sunday evening I suppose?
I ought to know better, of course. As I said earlier today, it never ends well.
I fear something monstrous could happen at Kabul Airport in the next 24 hours
Alex Macheras @AlexInAir · 3m Unbelievable, desperate scenes at Kabul’s international airport. thousand of people, families, young children, all trying to leave #Kabul as the Taliban takes hold.
Chaos on the tarmac with people moving around between airline jets"
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
In 1939 we declared war on Germany, not vice versa. Should we not have done that?
Of course we should. Germany invaded Poland, there was both an ultimatum put forward to Germany, and also a commitment to defend Poland.
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
In 1939 we declared war on Germany, not vice versa. Should we not have done that?
In 1938 it seems BigG would have been cheering on Neville Chamberlain as he proclaimed 'peace in our time' after the Munich Agreement
It was not remotely similar as you well know and remember I was born when Hitler's bombs were exploding over our house in Manchester
Well thank goodness it was Churchill who was PM then and saw us through it.
Remember appeasement was very popular at the time but Churchill realised promises from a tiger are worthless
You seem to want UK lives to be lost on a fight in a place that has been unstable for generations and on our when even the US has quit
Try and sell that to the UK voters
It took Hitler to invade Poland for Churchill to come to the fore and Britain to go to war with the Nazis.
It would take 9/11 2 for another war on terror to be fought, sadly that may be inevitable
Hard to argue with Jon Sopel on this front Arguments can be made about the US policy to pull out – there is a strong feeling that US involvement couldn’t continue ad infinitum.
But the manner of the withdrawal has been hapless, with a mass of miscalculation, warnings ignored, and – critically – a wild over-estimation of the capability of the American-trained Afghan armed forces.
Biden was told the Afghan forces could hold out for at least eighteen months. Bad advice.
Someone on here mentioned Chernobyl this evening. Maybe it is similar. Everyone from the ground up lying about the situation to their next in command all the way up to Biden.
Biden was not told that at all. He was also told the preferred option was to leave the current US presence in there for the moment. And he ignored it. This is on his adminstration and him personally.
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
In 1939 we declared war on Germany, not vice versa. Should we not have done that?
In 1938 it seems BigG would have been cheering on Neville Chamberlain as he proclaimed 'peace in our time' after the Munich Agreement
To be fair, since Chamberlain was the Conservative PM at the time, I suspect you above all others would have been cheering him on.
Fair comment - made me smile when there is nothing to smile about today
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
In 1939 we declared war on Germany, not vice versa. Should we not have done that?
In 1938 it seems BigG would have been cheering on Neville Chamberlain as he proclaimed 'peace in our time' after the Munich Agreement
It was not remotely similar as you well know and remember I was born when Hitler's bombs were exploding over our house in Manchester
Well thank goodness it was Churchill who was PM then and saw us through it.
Remember appeasement was very popular at the time but Churchill realised promises from a tiger are worthless
You seem to want UK lives to be lost on a fight in a place that has been unstable for generations and on our when even the US has quit
Try and sell that to the UK voters
It took Hitler to invade Poland for Churchill to come to the fore and Britain to go to war with the Nazis.
It would take 9/11 2 for another war on terror to be fought, sadly that may be inevitable
Eh? That is a remarkable rewriting of history. Mr Churchill did not become PM till the Norwegian invasion. (He did become First Lord, [edit] on the out break of war, but that is not the 'fore' and he was not PM as you said warlier.
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
In 1939 we declared war on Germany, not vice versa. Should we not have done that?
In 1938 it seems BigG would have been cheering on Neville Chamberlain as he proclaimed 'peace in our time' after the Munich Agreement
It was not remotely similar as you well know and remember I was born when Hitler's bombs were exploding over our house in Manchester
Well thank goodness it was Churchill who was PM then and saw us through it.
Remember appeasement was very popular at the time but Churchill realised promises from a tiger are worthless however unpopular that view might be, in the end it was he who was right not Halifax and Chamberlain.
No doubt Biden too may get a piece of paper from the Taliban promising no trouble at all, however it will soon prove worthless
You are simply being ridiculous by comparing Afghanistan to 1939 Europe and Hitler's threat, but then you being ridiculous is not unusual
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
In 1939 we declared war on Germany, not vice versa. Should we not have done that?
In 1938 it seems BigG would have been cheering on Neville Chamberlain as he proclaimed 'peace in our time' after the Munich Agreement
To be fair, since Chamberlain was the Conservative PM at the time, I suspect you above all others would have been cheering him on.
Yes, there were plenty in Epping Conservatives who tried several times to deselect their local MP for opposing government policy.
"The US aid spending watchdog for Afghanistan warned last month that the US military had little or no means of knowing the capability of the Afghan National Defense and Security forces (ANDSF) when required to operate independently of the US forces, despite spending $88.3bn on security-related reconstruction in Afghanistan up to March 2021.
...
The watchdog had, it said, repeatedly warned about “the corrosive effects of corruption” within the force. With its reliance on advanced equipment, and with widespread illiteracy in its ranks, the force could not reliably maintain its strength and combat readiness."
Even the bloody audit committee could tell.
We will need to wait for whatever kind of reports come out of this disaster but it looks in part that the US built a shell of an Afghan army that could only operate with the support of the US.
And I don't think it was done deliberately, I think this was a huge decade and a half long fuck up of bad communication, wilful blindness and incentives.
I fear something monstrous could happen at Kabul Airport in the next 24 hours
Alex Macheras @AlexInAir · 3m Unbelievable, desperate scenes at Kabul’s international airport. thousand of people, families, young children, all trying to leave #Kabul as the Taliban takes hold.
Chaos on the tarmac with people moving around between airline jets"
Looks and sounds overwhelmingly like Afghans to me.
Of course. And?
Millions of Afghans are terrified of the Taliban, many thousands will be executed if they don't escape
Meanwhile, as the uncontrolled airport seethes with thousands of panicking Afghans, you have the airport defended by about 2000 US troops even as it is surrounded by maybe 10,000 triumphalist Taliban, some of them with excellent weapons and serious desire for revenge on America
And just a couple of successful mortars will close the runway and end the "evacuation"
It is not hard to see how this could be an outright catastrophe
And what action do you want, as I would be amazed if you and @HYUFD were on the same page on this
MPs wanted a recall of Parliament. The implication from the Tweet above is that they expected something decisive and are currently venting their frustration that BoZo is going to flunk it.
And if it is military intervention than for once I will be proud of Boris if he says no
In 1939 we declared war on Germany, not vice versa. Should we not have done that?
In 1938 it seems BigG would have been cheering on Neville Chamberlain as he proclaimed 'peace in our time' after the Munich Agreement
Neville Chamberlain declared war in 1939, you ignorant twat!
Comments
Lewis Goodall
@lewis_goodall
33m
Boris Johnson remarks to the Commons 8th July: “I am sure they will be aware that there is no military path to victory for the Taliban...I do not believe that the Taliban are guaranteed the kind of victory that we sometimes read about.”
Brass necked ****.
It would be a relief to a lot of us
I called for this recall so we can debate our biggest foreign policy failure in a generation.
Now I learn it will be a
ONE LINE WHIP…
Without a vote we will simply confirm that:
UK foreign policy is missing in action. https://twitter.com/Tobias_Ellwood/status/1426991171449114624/photo/1
I’ve been banned for being rude to Mark Senior, for allegedly having a fake email address (untrue: it’s the one I’m still using right now 15 years later, and Robert Smithson recently contacted me on), for posting Scottish sub-samples, for sticking up for my bullied colleague James Kelly, and just generally for being an annoying Jock, but I cannot recall ever being banned for posting odds. On a betting blog that would be truly bizarre.
1. From the 2011 Census returns, we know that the responses of 62% of the Scottish population to the national identity question indicated that they identified as "Scottish only." As distinct from 27% who answered "Scottish & British" or "British only," the balance being made up by a modest number of English people (2%) and various other bits and pieces
2. From the 2014 referendum, we know that 45% of that part of the Scottish electorate who chose to turn out voted for independence
Therefore, at a guess, something like 25-30% of all Scots who identified solely as Scottish, and who chose to turn out in 2014, must also have voted to uphold the British state. If they felt no attachment to Britain yet voted to keep it anyway, then I struggle to think of any other explanation than that they were afraid of being left worse off - whether those concerns centred on currency-related issues, terms of trade, state pensions, fiscal transfers, taxation and spending policies post-independence, or some combination of these things.
In short, it seems reasonable to assume that these voters were convinced that upholding the Union was to their material advantage. The alternatives: a desire to maintain a common military force (directed against whom - the Vikings?), masochism and stupidity don't seem plausible.
The fact that, seven years on from the independence referendum and a number of elections, controversies and crises later, the needle of public opinion still hasn't moved decisively in one direction or another, suggests that the transactional relationship voters still exist in large numbers and are quite possibly as numerous as before. The challenge which faced Mr Salmond's administration pre-2014, and that which faces Ms Sturgeon's now, is, I would therefore suggest, fundamentally the same: come up with a plausible vision of independence that convinces these voters that they will ideally be no worse off; or, at a stretch, that they won't be hit in the wallet very hard and the effects are liable to be short-lived. If they can do that then, given that the conviction Unionist vote is a relatively small minority (certainly no more than 30%,) they shall inevitably win in the end. Simple.
https://twitter.com/thephilippics/status/1426913772451635200?s=20
The only way to fight back is to be equally evil and brutal, as the Iraqis, Kurds and Syrians eventually discovered, when they started torturing and beheading all their ISIS captives
That's the only way to beat the Taliban, I fear. It needs Afghans as ferocious but from the opposite side. Or the Americans could just bomb them all to bits
If you were not banned for it you should have been.!
Taking fire could be anything; mortars, rockets , some geezers pot shotting long range with machine guns or rifles. What it does suggest is the lack of heavy cordon outside the airport grounds which is essential to push the threat out
The Pentagon has just announced more deployments but this seems to be of troops already announced sitting in Kuwait on forward deployment. There is no doubt this evacuation has been sluggish because theyve been caught out. If the UK expected a 3 week operation the US was probably on the same timeline. Only today did the French announce air tranbsport deployments to Kabul, other states are sending air force transports now that commercial flights have ceased which they appear to have not factored in until the moment it happened.
The flat reality is the announced 3000 then 5000 troop deployment isnt fully on the ground and maybe only half on the ground. If it was fully there this would be a different security situation.
In effect the situation has been entirely outsourced to the Taliban to decide how hard this gets.
The Government is explicitly telling it's own MPs "we don't care how you vote" which in turn means the vote is pointless.
https://twitter.com/MsHelicat/status/1426998268240728064
The general position is that we follow what the Americans have decided and have no possible input now into that.
The government will update (a bit late) on what they are doing to ensure all our people, hopefully including those who have worked with and for us, are safe.
Is there anything that will conceivably be changed by any vote on Wednesday?
Madrid 2004 was not even 10% of that death toll
https://twitter.com/MsHelicat/status/1426998268240728064?s=20
Now I learn it will be a
ONE LINE WHIP…
Without a vote ...
That was what I was responding to when saying:
and it doesn't mean that there won't be a vote, just people aren't whipped to vote the party line.
I'm not what about that is contentious.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/15/the-observer-view-on-the-fall-of-afghanistan
And for the nth time I DON'T LIKE BORIS.
"The US aid spending watchdog for Afghanistan warned last month that the US military had little or no means of knowing the capability of the Afghan National Defense and Security forces (ANDSF) when required to operate independently of the US forces, despite spending $88.3bn on security-related reconstruction in Afghanistan up to March 2021.
...
The watchdog had, it said, repeatedly warned about “the corrosive effects of corruption” within the force. With its reliance on advanced equipment, and with widespread illiteracy in its ranks, the force could not reliably maintain its strength and combat readiness."
Even the bloody audit committee could tell.
Terrorists only need to get through once, having Afghanistan as a base to train jihadis for terrorism on the West means there are far more for the intelligence services to try and stop
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/when-the-world-dials-999-it-prays-america-picks-up-the-phone-ktzzvrp78fp
https://twitter.com/UKDefJournal/status/1426999669910016009?s=20
Possibly Raab next out in view of the weekends events in Central Asia?
25/1 with WH, 16/1 on Wallace. Someone needs to carry the can for this intelligence failure.
I would say that what has transpired today is an astonishing failure of military intelligence and of course Biden will be heavily criticised, as will Boris for his comments a few weeks ago, but I very much doubt the electorates of the US and UK will want either Biden or Boris to re-enter the affray with all the consequences that could follow
If blame is being apportioned then Trump, Biden, the intelligence services and to a lesser degree Boris, as he had no choice but to follow the US, as it is inconceivable the UK could have stood alone in this theatre of war, all have questions to answer
Dr Ashraf Chohan, founder and chair of Conservative Friends of the NHS, which aims to forge ties between politicians and healthcare workers in the private and public sectors, is the sole director of 1Rapid Clinics, a government-approved Covid-19 testing company that some customers have claimed sent results back late, lost samples and refused refunds.
Chohan’s testing company is just one of a number of private firms with links to the Conservatives. Details of his involvement have emerged amid concern that the for-profit Covid testing regime put in place by the government is on the brink of collapse.
https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1426995373520924675
BREAKING: President Biden orders 1,000 more paratroopers from 82nd Airborne to Kabul to evacuate Americans. 6,000 U.S. troops will now be on the ground in Afghanistan.
The problem is that the Taliban can bring in more forces from around Afghanistan into Kabul. The Americans need to remember the fall of Singapore in 1942, which was thought to be impregnable from the land. About 80,000 British, Indian and Australian troops in Singapore became prisoners of war, despite outnumbering the Japanese by 3 to 1. It may be too risky to reinforce the existing forces as the reinforcements may also be at risk, as happened in the Battle of Crete in 1941. The Americans may have to choose between a very bad outcome and a major disaster.
It was vacated just hours ago by government officials, including former President Ashraf Ghani who has fled the country.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1427003231008346113
Remember appeasement was very popular at the time but Churchill realised promises from a tiger are worthless however unpopular that view might be, in the end it was he who was right not Halifax and Chamberlain.
No doubt Biden too may get a piece of paper from the Taliban promising no trouble at all, however it will soon prove worthless
https://twitter.com/bsarwary/status/1427002551858311173
Alex Macheras
@AlexInAir
·
3m
Unbelievable, desperate scenes at Kabul’s international airport. thousand of people, families, young children, all trying to leave #Kabul as the Taliban takes hold.
Chaos on the tarmac with people moving around between airline jets"
https://twitter.com/AlexInAir/status/1427002965420908546?s=20
Try and sell that to the UK voters
I am on Raab and Wallace for half the price of a pint.
If after two decades they've failed and are giving up then absolutely I believe we have no power, or authority, or purpose to prolong this another decade or two.
I ought to know better, of course. As I said earlier today, it never ends well.
It would take 9/11 2 for another war on terror to be fought, sadly that may be inevitable
And I don't think it was done deliberately, I think this was a huge decade and a half long fuck up of bad communication, wilful blindness and incentives.
Millions of Afghans are terrified of the Taliban, many thousands will be executed if they don't escape
Meanwhile, as the uncontrolled airport seethes with thousands of panicking Afghans, you have the airport defended by about 2000 US troops even as it is surrounded by maybe 10,000 triumphalist Taliban, some of them with excellent weapons and serious desire for revenge on America
And just a couple of successful mortars will close the runway and end the "evacuation"
It is not hard to see how this could be an outright catastrophe